


Jeeves and the Dangerous Discovery

by Mice



Category: Jeeves & Wooster
Genre: Angst, Competent!Bertie, M/M, dark themes, dashed inconvenient accusations, frantic scrambling, h/c, homophobic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:56:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mice/pseuds/Mice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aunt Agatha has summoned Bertie to Bumpleigh Hall as his 30th birthday impends. As usual, things go wrong. This time, even Jeeves can't fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jeeves and the Dangerous Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to random_nexus for helping me beat the plot into shape when this was but a ravening plotbunny of DOOM. Because everything goes better with DOOM. Beta stick gleefully applied by random_nexus, queen_fiend, and calccarbonate. They are made of awesome and win.

The whole thing started with Stiffy Pinker, _neé_ Byng, she of the blackmailous disposition.

Well, no, actually it started with Aunt Agatha, as many a Wooster nightmare tends to. In this case, she had summoned me to Bumpleigh Hall a couple of weeks before I was to enter the looming gateway of my thirtieth year. I had every reason to believe that I was to be assaulted with threats of matrimony again; they had been coming rather more frequently in the last year or so, at a steadily rising pitch that eventually only MacIntosh would be able to hear. As it turned out, my sneaking suspicions didn't have to sneak at all. They could have tromped in through the front door shod in hobnails without even being noticed.

"People have been speculating, Bertie, and doing so in quite dangerous and entirely scandalous directions," she said, glowering like an impending thunderstorm. "There have been suggestions that you are not interested in women in the least, and this cannot be tolerated." Her gaze could have peeled paint from the side of a barn at fifty paces.

"It's not my fault if the beazels you keep pointing at me never seem to stick," I objected. "A chap can't be expected to wed the unwilling, after all." We'd discussed this, Jeeves and I. Not the wedding the unwilling thing, but potential dangerous speculations of the sort the aged relation was averring. Said d. s. were, I fear, far too close to the truth.

Jeeves and I had in fact been engaged in a particularly close state of chumminess that does not usually exist between a gentleman and his personal gentleman for something on the order of the last three-ish years. We were both entirely aware of the danger of this sort of c. s. of c. and the possible outcomes if our cosy sitch were discovered. Prison and two years of hard labor, perhaps. Interment in some blighted place like Colney Hatch for our perversions, with all the horrifying thingummies that entailed, if the family wanted to avoid a trial and the ensuing scandal. The much-dreaded separation of Jeeves and self, obviously. None of these were things either of us wanted to see happen and so we had acted with a discretion of which few would have suspected Bertram to be capable. Yet there was still the ever-present matter of my continuing blissful bachelorhood while the rest of my friends settled into their varying states of matrimony. It would look ever more suspicious as the years passed and this eccentric Wooster continued unattached, and this caused many a worried wrinkle upon my brow. It had caused more than a few w. w.s upon Jeeves's as well.

The auntly one glared at me and I feared I might burst into flame. "I know it's all been Jeeves's doing, you slack jawed pillock," she snapped. Aunt A. has never cared for him much, and recently that dislike had been boiling toward genuine hatred. For his sake, I tried to be in an entirely different country any time we thought she might have reason to summon me. I didn't want to subject him to her auntly wrath, after all. She had always resented his massive brain, believing that servants should have only enough of one to maintain respiration and carry a tray at dinner, respiration optional. I was actually of the opinion that she'd suspected us for some time, despite all our precautions. "The fact that I have not yet been able to prove his interference is irrelevant. You will be thirty in just a few weeks, Bertram. Your Uncle George is in failing health and you, despite your complete lack of any socially redeeming features whatsoever, will inherit the family title. We cannot have you unmarried when you become Lord Yaxley. You must carry on the family name, and for that you require a wife. Would to God that you were not an only child, so that the title could have been handed on to someone else! Blast your father, and blast George for only spawning daughters!"

"Now, see here, aged relation!" I began.

"Do shut up, you useless parasite." My lips snapped shut. One doesn't argue with aunts when they are in this state, one simply quivers silently and hopes for a quick escape. "You have been bypassed by nearly every suitable woman of your social class in this entire nation. I've had to arrange for a young woman to be shipped in from a good family that has been in India for the last ten years. India, Bertram! She will be here in two days and you will marry her or I shall rend your worthless carcass and nail you to the front gate so that your slightly less worthless cousin Claude will inherit the title."

"But he and Eustace are still in South Africa." I was willing to let pass her comment that Claude could possibly be less worthless than self, if only to hasten the moment in which I could leave her company.

"That matters naught. The title will pass, regardless of his location. The only thing standing in his way is the fact that you currently continue to draw breath." I didn't like the implication in the least.

"I say! That's not terribly loving, old family bosom," I said, and I meant it to sting.

"Shut up, you blasted oik; I am speaking. The young woman in question is Miss Petunia Dalrymple of the Norfolk Dalrymples. She is nineteen years old and has a considerable fortune behind her. You will accompany me to meet her ship when she arrives the day after tomorrow, and you will propose to her. You have been accepted by her father, despite your numerous and nearly insurmountable flaws, and you will be wed as soon as we are able to get you through the door of the church, do you hear me?"

I blinked, the wind taken rather abruptly from my sails. "Considering the volume of your cries, aged a., I'm sure half of Steeple Bumpleigh did." The heart was fluttering within the Wooster breast like a terrified hummingbird. Jeeves had only two days to get me out of this. I couldn't lose him and, were I actually wed, I could not carry on an affair behind the gal's back. It would not be at all the act of the _gentil parfait_ sort, running entirely against the Code of the Woosters. It was a sitch that could not be borne, not in the least.

"Bertram, you will cease your blithering immediately. You may go for the moment, but I shall expect what passes for your best behavior until you have said your vows before the family and God." With that she gave me the old heave-ho out the door and into the wilds of Bumpleigh Hall.

Needless to say, I brought this quickly before Jeeves and his fish fed brain. I had to nip round to the area of the house generally reserved for the servants in order to find him, nearly tripping over Edwin, the little blister, on the way. Jeeves was ensconced in an underbutler's room, where he was to sleep, sharing a gasper and shining my shoes. Not the shoe-shining, but the gasper was being shared, you understand. There was no reason for one of Aunt Agatha's underbutlers to be messing about with any of my footwear. "Jeeves, a word," I said, gesturing toward the back door. "No, strike that. Much more than a word. Several paragraphs, in fact. Possibly entire pages. Rally round."

The underbutler gave me a very odd look and Jeeves raised an eyebrow. "Of course, sir." He put down my shoe and the rag he was using, handed the cigarette to said underbutler, and followed me wordlessly off into the garden, where we could have a private chat. Once we were well separated from Bumpleigh Hall by a series of tall hedges and scads of imposing greenery, he slowed our pace. "You're quite agitated, sir. What has happened?"

"Aunt Agatha has stooped to importing Dalrymples from India in an attempt to marry me off again, Jeeves. She says people have been voicing dangerous speculations and that I must marry before my birthday. She also expects Uncle George to be shuffling off the mortal c. in the soonish range, making her all the more eager to marry me off before I inherit the title." I shivered.

"Would this be Miss Petunia Dalrymple of--"

"Yes, yes, Jeeves, but enough of that. The poor blighter's only nineteen! What could she possibly have done for her family to cast her up on Bertram's shores sight unseen? Is she hideously deformed? Aunt A. said they're rather an oofy lot, so they're obviously not flinging her at me in hopes of the Wooster wealth, such as it is."

He regarded me calmly, with only the tiniest slip in the usual stuffed frog façade. "I have not heard that Miss Dalrymple has any particularly tragic flaws, sir, but the fact that the family has been in India suggests that they have had little opportunity as yet to introduce her to suitable young gentlemen of her class."

"Well, I don't want to be introduced to her, Jeeves, as I'm entirely unsuitable. She's due day after tomorrow and the aged a. will be dragging me off by one ear to meet her at the docks. She means to have me married at the first possible moment."

Jeeves nodded solemnly. "This may, perhaps, explain the presence of Reverend Pinker," he said.

"Stinker's here? Oh, good Lord, Reggie, that just tears it." He gave me a disapproving glance and I buried my face in my hands; I knew full well that we weren't to utter given names outside the locked doors of our own bedroom back in the flat, but I was filled with despair and we were perambu-something well away from the house. "If Stinker's here, Stiffy can't be far behind. That means we'll have to sprout eyes in the back of our bally heads. She's sure to try to blackmail me into something."

"Sir, you must not despair, and you must never drop your guard. We cannot allow the slightest slip, particularly not with Mrs. Pinker on the premises. Should she attempt to coerce you into participating in one of her plots, you must inform me immediately; it is always possible that such a thing could be turned to our advantage." There was the slightest hint of a lecture in his tone in re. the guard dropping thing, but the rest of his words held a glimmer of the fondness he expressed more fully when we were alone.

I nodded. "Sorry, old thing. If I forget myself, better it should be out here, where no one's near enough to hear it, what?" He lowered his chin disapprovingly at me, suggesting that even this was too much of a risk. "You're right, though. Most of the time, the schemes my erstwhile friends get me into do tend to lend an air of the half-mad buffoon to the Wooster reputation, and that does help keep the beazels at bay."

"Indeed, sir, though I am as yet without any suggestions."

"Oh, come now Jeeves, I haven't even worn a tie you disapprove of in at least the last week!"

He tilted one immaculate eyebrow. "Four days, sir."

"Well, four days, then. I'm not wearing one now! You have to do something. I'm desperate!"

He nodded with a slight incline of the noble Jeevesian brow. "I do understand, sir. I will admit I am quite concerned, particularly regarding Lady Worplesdon's assertion that dangerous speculations are beginning to arise." He paused for a moment as we walked, and when he spoke again, he was quiet enough that I had to lean close to hear him. "We have known from the beginning that such would be a risk. I have always endeavored to arrange the demise of your engagements by discouraging the young ladies rather than allowing it to be seen as your choice. I'm certain, sir, that this will continue to be the case. Without witnesses or proof of any untoward behavior on our part, there is only speculation, and unfounded speculation cannot result in outright accusations lest your family take legal action to defend your reputation."

I cast my eyes heavenward. "Aunt Dahlia might attempt to defend my reputation, but Aunt Agatha? No, my dear man. She's disliked you since the first day she met you and I think she'd almost find it worthwhile to sully my reputation in order to rid herself of you. We can't have that." The very thought of my life without Jeeves in it was too horrifying to contemplate.

"I do not believe she would allow the Wooster name to be stained in such a way, sir. It has been a useful defense."

"Still, you have to think of something."

"I shall give it my full attention, sir. I assure you." There was a comforting firmness in his voice and I knew I could trust him to keep us both safe. "The fact that I do not yet have a plan does not mean I shall not formulate one within the required timespan."

"Go have a sardine or three, Jeeves," I said, waving him off. "Perhaps a whole tin. We can speak of this later."

"Indeed, sir."

***

Just after tea-time, I was accosted by Stiffy Pinker in the conservatory with a plot. "Good Lord, Stiffy!" I said, with a manful yelp, being as she had just popped out from behind a potted palm with a dire expression on her face.

"Oh, Bertie," she said. "Bertie, you're just the man I needed to see." Her eyes lit with a dashed frightening glow that I recognized from several of the other wheezes into which she'd attempted to dunk me. I felt the lapping of soup rising around my ankles.

"What is it this time, Stiffy, old thing?" I asked, the Wooster e.s narrowing with suspicion. I remembered what Jeeves had said about informing him immediately and attempted to remain calm.

She tilted her head and gazed at me down the length of her rather lengthy nose. "I'm in need of your aid, Bertie -- you're just the chump to do the deed for me."

I backed away, only to be stopped by a wall of geraniums. "Oh, no," I said. "Whatever it is you're up to, Bertram wants no part of it."

Stiffy gave a snort like a disappointed racehorse. "You don't even know what I'm going to ask."

"It doesn't matter. With you, it's never something innocent. It's always 'pinch this for me, Bertie' or 'let Stinker biff you over the head with a golf club, Bertie.'" I shook one chiding finger at her.

Her eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth in what I suppose was intended as a grin. "My diary has gone missing, Bertie. I need you to find it for me."

"What? Gone missing, you say?" Well, that was a bit of bad luck. "That's a bit of bad luck, I must say. Have you searched your room? Under the bed? In the backs of the drawers and whatnot?"

Stiffy glared. "Of course I have. No, Bertie, someone's stolen it."

The eyebrows rose skyward. "Stolen? What, you think one of Aunt Agatha's guests or the staff nicked it?" I shook my head. "That seems terribly unlikely." Then again, I'd been forced to nick more than a few things when I was a guest under other people's roofs from time to time. I preferred not to contemplate this.

"I'm sure it was one of the staff," she said, her teeth glittering somewhat like a shark's in the sun through the conservatory windows. Not that there would be a shark in the conservatory, mind you.

"Well," I said, "if you're so sure, why don't you just have Maple have the chambermaids look for it?"

The glitter got more glittery, with a dash of fearsome. "That diary is private, Bertie. No woman wants her privacy invaded by the staff."

"Really, Stiffy, I do sympathize, but Bertram is not the man for you. I can't go popping about belowstairs peeking into the staff's drawers. Their bureau drawers, I mean, but not their underthings, either. That really wouldn't be cricket at all. I'd probably end up engaged to one of the maids."

Stiffy's face folded a bit and I could swear I got a whiff of brimstone. "Don't think I'm not aware of the rumors about you and your man Jeeves, Bertie."

I thought for a moment the old ticker had stopped entirely. "Wh-what rumors?" I asked, going for nonchalance and missing wildly. "I haven't heard any rumors."

She put one predatory paw on my shoulder. I could swear I felt claws extending from the tips of her fingers into the tender Wooster flesh. "The rumors, dearest Bertie, about why you're nearly thirty and not yet married. The rumors about what you two get up to behind locked doors."

"I say!" I squeaked. "I say, that's horrid! You can't possibly mean that, Stiffy. It can't have escaped your attention that every beazel I've ever been engaged to has been the one to issue the _nolle prosequi_ , not _vic_ ing the _versa_. It's not like I haven't _tried_ to get married!"

The laugh that emerged from between Stiffy's lips wasn't exactly a cackle, but it was perhaps its second cousin with a plan to marry closer in. "I was in the garden this morning, Bertie. I heard you call him _Reggie_."

I was nigh unto expiry. The heart trembled. The limbs quaked. I'm quite certain I must have been white as bleached sheets in a blizzard by that point. "Th-that's all the rage now, don't you know," I said. "Crossing class lines, treating one's valet as a chum, popping out to the pub for a pint together, all that rot! Everyone's doing it these days."

The not-quite-cackle sounded again. "You can't possibly expect me to be that dim, Bertie. Jeeves? Tolerate someone of the better classes calling him Reggie? Absolutely not. He's unbending as granite when it comes to proper etiquette. It would never happen. Ever." Her eyes had narrowed into tiny, horrifying slits. "You'll do this for me, Bertie, if you value what little reputation you have left."

"That's just not sporting," I whispered, shaken like several nightclubs full of martinis. "Stiffy, you can't mean that. I'm not -- we're not -- do you know what they do to people like that?" The stories I'd heard would horrify even Doctor Franken-something. There were electrical thingummies hooked up to one's private bits involved. I could feel said p. b. attempting to climb inside at the mere thought.

"Quite frankly, Bertie, no matter how disgusting I find the whole thing -- and believe me, I do think it's inexcusably evil and perverse -- I want to retrieve my diary. I'm not absolutely positive the rumors are true because, as you say, you have actually attempted to get married more than once. If it ever went to trial, I sincerely doubt anything would be proved because you're such a gormless little git that I doubt you could hide such a thing, but it would certainly make your lives miserable, wouldn't it? That's more than enough for my purposes, at the moment. Though, if they were true..." The look on her face flashed for a moment to vague nausea and scampered through burning hatred before nipping back to disgust and determination.

I nodded, perhaps a little too vigorously, considering how dizzy I had suddenly become. "I-I'll talk to Jeeves. Maybe he can find a way to get your diary back."

"You do that," she said. "I'll expect it in my hands by tomorrow morning. And do not dare open the thing. It's a leather book, light blue, with my name embossed on the outside."

"Right ho," I said. "Leather. Blue. Name. Tomorrow morning." She let go of my shoulder and I turned tail and fled as though an entire bally platoon of Siberian tigers was chasing me.

***

I was seated in the back garden near the kitchen door with an improving book and a small glass of wine as I took a private moment between tea and the dinner service when Mr. Wooster hurried to my side. Pale and shaking, his blue eyes wide, he looked utterly terrified. As he caught his breath, I closed my book and set it and the glass of wine upon the small side table, rising to meet him. "Sir?"

Without a word, he grasped my sleeve in one hand and pulled me out beyond the open garden, across a field, and into the boxwood maze, panting harshly. "Jeeves," he finally gasped, "Jeeves, we're sunk. Stiffy's threatening to turn us in if we don't come up with the bally blue book."

While I was not, as yet, certain what the blue book in question was, the rest of his meaning was frighteningly obvious. "And what blue book is this, sir?"

"Diary, Jeeves. She says it was stolen and she wants it back." He was trembling violently. "She was in the garden this morning when we were talking. She heard me call you Reggie." Mr. Wooster's voice was a bare whisper by that point, and he took my other sleeve in his free hand. "She said she's not certain and that if it went to trial they'd likely not be able to prove anything but, good God, how could she even make a threat like that? Even if they couldn't find any evidence--"

"Mrs. Pinker has never hesitated to use anything that comes to hand in her efforts to advance her own cause. Did she describe the book to you, sir?" I had dealt with her a number of times before, but in those cases the threats had been minor and the potential effects annoying rather than harmful. This threat, carried out, could destroy us both. It chilled me to the bone. I had no doubt that she would in fact cause us a great deal of trouble and damage Mr. Wooster's reputation beyond repair if we could not acquire the book for her. She is a woman of vicious and vindictive temperament and is not well-liked belowstairs in any of the houses she has visited. I did not wish to think of what might happen to me should her threat be carried out.

He nodded, still breathless. "Leather. Light blue," he said, "with her name on the outside. She thinks one of the staff nicked it and doesn't want her private affairs noised about. Forget about our privacy! Jeeves, what are we going to do?"

"I shall make inquiries, sir," I said, projecting a calm I did not feel. "If it has, indeed, been stolen rather than misplaced, I shall find it and you shall return it to her, thus eliminating the threat."

This did not calm him, however. His hands slipped up my arms to my shoulders and he grasped them with an almost bruising strength. "We have to find some way to convince her that nothing's going on, Jeeves. It's not just a matter of getting her diary back." He looked around us quickly but carefully, pausing for a moment, paranoid. He reminded me in that slight stillness of a skittish deer who had scented a wolf. I could not blame him, and examined our surroundings carefully myself. The tall, thick boxwood foliage that concealed us could equally easily conceal another, though I detected neither sound nor motion around us.

"I do understand, sir. That she has proposed such an action at all suggests she is likely to return to it as a theme when she wants something from you. You are correct in suggesting that we must find a way to dispel her suspicions for our own future safety and peace of mind."

"Nothing short of my ending up shackled to some beazel would do that," he insisted. "I can't live like that, Jeeves. I won't." His voice rose slightly with his panic. "I don't know what to do, Jeeves. What should I do?"

"You must not panic, sir," I said, placing one hand on his shoulder and looking him steadily in the eyes with a confidence I did not entirely feel. Between Lady Worplesdon's threats and Mrs. Pinker's I knew our situation had become untenable despite our most careful precautions. If we managed to escape this with Mr. Wooster still unmarried -- a prospect fervently to be desired by both of us -- it would probably be wise to take a lengthy holiday overseas until the situation had calmed somewhat and counter-rumors could be brought to bear. "If Mrs. Pinker's stated goal is to get her diary back, she will not follow through with these accusations at this time. She would have no cause to do so, particularly if she has no actual evidence of wrongdoing to bring forward. Once the diary has been returned, we can turn our attention to dispelling the rumors, perhaps by creating the illusion of a rift between us. It may, however, necessitate my taking employment elsewhere for a month or so before I might engineer a quiet return to your employ."

He swallowed hard then nodded. "Like with the banjolele," he said, seeming slightly calmer.

"Precisely, sir."

"But that was before... before..."

"I know, sir." The banjolele incident, nearly three years ago now, was what had precipitated our understanding in the first place. That parting of ways had been much more painful for both of us than Mr. Wooster would ever dare commit to paper. Its origin lay as much in months of frustrated and sublimated desire as in our disagreement over a musical instrument, and our reunion had been, unexpectedly, a stirring and deeply emotional one.

"I can't bear the thought of you leaving," he said softly, "but it's better than the thought of losing you altogether. If you think it's necessary then I'll not argue the point right now." He looked around us again, thoroughly distressed but trembling rather less violently. "Do you think anyone's lurking about, Jeeves?" he asked.

I released his shoulder and he let go of mine. Casting about us cautiously, I listened carefully and took the extra precaution of pushing a foot into the boxwood shrubs surrounding us at several points, thinking that if anyone might be hiding, they would be compelled to move to avoid being kicked. There was no sign of either sound or movement beyond the expected nearby birdsong. "I believe we are alone, sir," I said.

His sigh was weary and he reached out to me with one hand. Believing we were safe, at least for a few minutes, I took him in my arms and held him as he clung to me. "I can't tell you how bally frightened I am right now," he whispered.

"I have been contemplating several options for avoiding your impending engagement to Miss Dalrymple," I told him, holding him close against my body and rubbing his back gently to help calm him, as I rested my cheek in his fair, soft hair. I disliked sleeping apart from him as much as he did and had very much missed having him in my arms the night before. "Once Mrs. Pinker's diary has been dealt with, we can turn our full attention to that and, once you are freed from that threat, it might be wise for us to visit New York for a few months." He nodded into the curve of my shoulder and then raised his face to me. I kissed him softly, caressing his cheek gently. "When we return, we shall spread rumors of a disagreement between us and I shall take my leave of you for a short time. That should at least temporarily dispense with any untoward assumptions regarding the nature of our association." I feared that my return to him, however, would raise the spectre of these accusations again; we would have only a few years, at best, before we would likely be forced to flee the country for our own safety. I did not believe for an instant that we could carry on as we were indefinitely without being discovered, no matter how many precautions we took, but I would protect him regardless of the cost.

"All right," he said, stepping away from me and taking a deep, steadying breath. The trust in his eyes as he regarded me was terrifying. I could only hope that I would be able to live up to those expectations, that I could bring both of us out of this, whole and together. "I suppose I should let you dash off and magic this dratted diary out of whatever pocket it's fallen into, what?"

"Indeed, sir," I said, already having a few individuals in mind with whom to speak.

***

The atmosphere at dinner was dashed rummy, with a _frisson_ of tension that I didn't quite follow, rather akin to a nervous grasshopper awaiting the swoop of a hawk, if hawks are the birds that eat grasshoppers. Jeeves was serving with the household staff, white-gloved and immaculate as ever. He was far too handsome to keep my eyes from entirely, leaning close when he poured wine for me, or laid a new course. At moments like this, I hated being away from our own flat. Not only could I not touch him, I could barely acknowledge him but for the casual nod and the soft word of thanks.

His stuffed frog mask was firmly in place and anyone else looking at him might have thought him perfectly unruffled. To the knowing Wooster e., however, there was a more than disturbing hint of ruffle in his visage. It was a slight tension about the jaw, as though he'd bitten a lemon unexpectedly. I hadn't been able to speak to him since our moment in the garden, so I didn't know if he'd laid hands on the diary. If he hadn't, this might be the source of his slightly twitchy air.

Stinker sat next to me over dinner. He'd so far managed to avoid tripping over anything irreplaceable, thus not angering the nephew crusher more than usual. He blathered cheerfully about my upcoming engagement and I nodded and said a few words in all the right places, desperate to think about anything but the poor young wretch who was to be chained to me without so much as a how do you do. All right, I was also thinking about my own dismal life under such Jeevesless circs, but I didn't really think I could blame the poor beazel for being flung in my direction _sans_ proper introduction. God only knew what she'd been told to expect. If I were married without casting any sturgeons and other fish or molluscs upon Jeeves, he would at least be safe; it would be the only comfort I had. Throughout dinner, Stiffy had the most peculiar look on her face, and Aunt Agatha looked like she'd swallowed a knife-wielding veal cutlet. Edwin just stared at me, flinching slightly when I looked in his direction. I'm not always the most perceptive chap, but this night Bertram had a distinct sense that something was horribly wrong. I just wished I could lay a finger on what that horribly wrong thingness was.

I managed to get through the post-prandial drinks and entertainment, walloping out a few tunes on the old ivories, but even that didn't help much. I had a rather nasty sense of numbery-something. Four-something, means you think something untoward may be stalking the horizon with intent to pounce like a vulture. Foreboding! That's the chap. Jeeves, hovering at the edge of the room as was his wont during such times, was projecting a steely air of fortitude that covered a somewhat unnerved filling. I've seen the man maintain absolute calm and thingummy while we were being shot at by policemen in New York, by Jove. He's solid as a lead-filled whatsit in almost any sitch, so this unnerved filling thingummy was creeping about the edges of my mind like nibbling centipedes, all tickly and shivery on my skin. I didn't like it at all.

It was a blessed sense of relief, leaving the company for the night and making my way up the stairs with Jeeves. We didn't speak until we entered my room. "Something's wrong, isn't it?" I asked, rather fretful.

He nodded, letting fall some of the mask he wore in front of others. "I fear we are in very grave danger," he said softly. "I'm uncertain of the exact details, but something has been happening and there have been attempts to hide it from me." He glanced nervously over his shoulder. "As soon as the house settles for the night, we must leave. I don't know how long we have, Bertie, but I fear that what peace we are currently experiencing will not last until dawn."

"Good Lord," I whispered. "You think they know."

"I believe so."

"But, Reg, Stiffy said we had until morning to--"

There was a quiet knock on the door and I jumped like a frightened rabbit. Jeeves whispered, "If anything happens, _you must get out_. Do not concern yourself with me, Bertie, just go. I will meet you if I can, as we've discussed before." There was a hint of steel in his voice and I shivered. He kissed me once, a brief touch of his lips to mine, and straightened as the knock sounded again, then went to open it.

My knees nearly went out from under me when Jeeves opened the door. I'd rather expected it to be Stiffy, wafting by to torment me and ask if we'd got her diary back yet. She was there all right, but so were Aunt Agatha, Uncle Percy, the butler Maple, a couple of large and muscular looking chaps that I think were footmen, and -- most alarmingly -- Stilton Cheesewright, burly local constable at Steeple Bumpleigh, maker of misery for Bertram, possessor of a pink face like a flabby lump of flabby pink dough, and regular threatener of spine-breaking upon my person. Jeeves went pale and my stomach dropped into my feet, pushing my toes right out of the way in its rush.

Stilton and the footmen came in first, with Aunt Agatha right behind them. "I have you now, you disgusting pervert," she said, shooting a glare at Jeeves that would have caused any lesser being -- this Wooster, for instance -- to burst into flame on the spot. "Edwin caught you molesting my nephew in the maze this afternoon and I shall finally see the end of you!"

I backed up a step, too startled to do anything else, but Jeeves stepped firmly forward to put himself into the breech between me and the advancing barbarian hordes. "Lady Worp--"

Stilton didn't let him get a word in, but pulled a truncheon from his coat. There was a blur of motion, and Stilton struck a nasty blow to the back of one of Jeeves's knees, dragging a gasp of pain from him. Jeeves stumbled but didn't fall. That stroke, though, transformed the man. Where he had only a moment before been a pale but dignified figure who was going to try to talk our way out of this, he now threw himself at Stilton, fists flying. The footmen leapt at him, reaching for his arms to try to restrain him, and I couldn't let them do that. I flung myself into the fray as well, trying to tackle one of them, to drag the blighter off of him. "No!" I shouted, "Stop this! Aunt Agatha, don't do this!"

The footman I'd gone for was broad and tough as horseshoes where I was tall and willowy. He was several stone heavier than me; he'd probably have to be weighed in boulders. I didn't have a chance, really. He knocked me to the floor with one sharply-placed elbow in the solar whatsit and sat on me, carefree as a mastiff planted on a kitten, while Stilton went for Jeeves with the truncheon again. I writhed under the bally mountain of a man as Jeeves cried out in pain, his leg collapsing beneath him. Even that didn't stop him from fighting and he managed to land a few solid blows, though between Stilton, the footman, and Maple, he was outnumbered and outmuscled. It was only a moment before Stilton had slapped the darbies on him, locking Jeeves's hands tightly behind his back. They dragged him to his feet and he swayed between Maple and the footman, panting for breath, his dark hair in disarray and falling over his eyes. He tried to jerk away from them again but Stilton punched him in the gut, doubling him over and knocking the wind entirely out of him.

The footman who'd been sitting on me wrenched me to my feet by one arm and twisted it painfully behind my back. I managed not to yelp, though I'll admit I gasped; I was far more terrified for Jeeves than for myself. I'd end up married, which was bad enough, but he would end up _hurt_. He'd be locked away forever. The things they did to men like us didn't bear thinking of, and God only knew what would happen to him before he even left Bumpleigh Hall. "This is insane," I said. "You can't do this!"

"Do shut up, Bertram," the old dragon snapped. They held us secure on either side of the room, separated by at least ten feet. It would have been a comfort even just to stand by his side. She turned her eyes to Jeeves again. "This is all your fault," she growled, sounding entirely lionish and baring her teeth at him as Jeeves tried to straighten himself again. "You defiled my idiot nephew and drew him into your filth."

"He didn't!" I said. "It was me -- it was all me! I'm the one who started it," I insisted. I had to do something to keep them from hurting him. "I-I told him if he didn't, I'd sack him! I forced him!"

Jeeves shook his head at me sharply and said, "No! Bertie, don't!" Stilton struck him another keen blow in the gut with the end of his truncheon and Jeeves went to his knees, gasping harshly.

"Bertram Wooster, I do not believe that for an instant. You don't have enough force of personality to choose your own clothing, much less to bend a venomous creature like this to your will. You have all the spine of a jellyfish, and only half its brain. He has thoroughly poisoned your mind and I will see that he suffers for it." Aunt Agatha stalked over to me and slapped me hard across the face, staggering me and causing my arm to twist even more painfully behind me. I gasped, my eyes closing against the searing jolt that dashed through the old wing. Jeeves was being dragged to his feet again as I opened my eyes.

"I'll take them both down to Steeple Bumpleigh and lock them up for the night," Stilton said, and I could hear the utter glee in his voice. He obviously thought his life was now complete. If he made off with us, I wasn't sure Jeeves would make it through the night.

"No, you will not," Uncle Percy said. I looked up at him. Jeeves stayed silent, swaying on his feet. "I will not have Agatha's family name dragged through the mud. Bertram will be married this week, and this disgusting... _thing_ will be remanded to the custody of Sir Roderick Glossop and placed in Colney Hatch, where he belongs. He will never have the chance to corrupt another young man again." Stilton looked dashed disappointed at this and shot me a look that suggested disembowelment had been tops on his list of Things To Do To Bertram Wooster Tonight. Jeeves, already pale, went white as a peaky polar bear that had spent the entire summer under a rock.

"But, Lord Worplesdon," Stilton started, "the law clearly states--"

"Hang the law," Uncle Percy barked. "There is the family's honor to consider, and this would come before me as the local magistrate. The scandal would be impossible to countenance. I can't have that, not at all. Sir Roderick will be here in a couple of hours and we will be rid of Jeeves for good." Jeeves's eyes closed, his face tightening into an expressionless mask, and I could feel my heart shatter inside me. There wasn't much time. I couldn't let them do this to him, couldn't let them take him away and hurt him. I had to do something -- but what?

"Take them out of here and separate them," Aunt Agatha said. Stilton grabbed my free arm and I was heaved out into the hallway between him and the footman, while Jeeves was dragged along viciously by Maple -- who was surprisingly spry for an older chap -- and the other footman, trailing along behind us. Half the staff was in the hallway as we were forced along, with Florence Craye and Uncle Percy's ward Nobby Hopwood hanging back in a corner, utter appalled horror with a side dish of disgust on their faces. Edwin, that hideous little blister on the billowy portion of humanity, was standing with them, wide-eyed and gaping like a goosed haddock. Stinker just gave me a sad look and shook his head. Stiffy managed to get up behind me for a moment, close enough to hiss, "Did you get it?"

"What? No!" I said, confused. Jeeves hadn't mentioned it, so I assumed he'd been planning to go after the diary during the night, had we stayed. She vanished as a mist under hot sunlight at my denial. I thought she might be taking advantage of the hullabaloo to try and find the blasted book herself.

"Put that thing in the Blue Room," Aunt Agatha said, gesturing toward Jeeves. "Regard him as a clever and dangerous animal and secure him so that he can't make an escape."

"No! Please, you can't!" I shouted. "Reggie, no!" They lugged him off down the corridor like a very large hunk of raw meat and pulled me toward the stairway. I stumbled as they shoved me up the stairs, looking behind me to get one more sight of him. They were being very rough with him, not letting him get enough balance to actually walk. I think they knew Jeeves would fight if he could just get his feet under him. I tried, God knows, but Stilton was absolutely beastly, twisting my arm violently so that I cried out. Jeeves struggled even harder when he heard the sound, but he got kicked in the leg again and dropped to his knees between them.

They finally shoved me into the Red Room. I tripped and ended up nose-first on the floor, the Wooster dial becoming somewhat too intimately acquainted with the Persian rug. I was one storey up and two rooms over from the Blue Room -- I knew that much. Stilton loomed over me like a thick-necked sequoia with his truncheon in one hand and a ghastly grin on his face.

"I am disgusted with you Bertram," Aunt Agatha said, shaking her head as I staggered to my feet. "I was certain this was happening but I could not prove it, and thus could take no action. Now that I can, I shall see to it that you are turned decisively away from this horrifying, Godless perversity. Your parents would be utterly ashamed of you for your weak will and your entirely feckless nature and I am glad they did not live to see this day. You have been all but a curse on this family. A wife will cure you at last, of that I'm certain. This incident shall never be spoken of again, Bertram, and if I ever hear the name _Jeeves_ pass your lips, even once, I shall see to it that you are placed in Roderick Glossop's custody as well."

I shuddered. "Please, for the love of God, Aunt Agatha, don't do this. Don't hurt him! If you've ever cared about me at all, please!"

"The name of God should never pass your lips, you festering little blister. I will speak to you tomorrow," she said, oozing ice from every pore. She departed, followed by Uncle Percy and the footman. Stilton stayed behind, causing my stomach to do a nasty foxtrot of anticipation. I didn't like the look in his eyes at all. There was a glint of the Visigoth in it, if you know what I mean, and I felt just a bit like Rome.

"If there was any justice in the world," Stilton said as the door closed, "I'd be hauling you both off to gaol right now. As it is, I've been wanting for years to snap you in half, you miserable little pansy." He took a step toward me, a murderous look in his eyes. "I should have known, with you toying with the hearts of every woman who comes near you."

I backed away, hands out to try to keep him back. "Now, see here, Stilton--"

"My name is D'Arcy, and you'll refer to me as Constable Cheesewright, Wooster." He slipped the truncheon into a pocket inside his coat and moved closer, more than slightly menacing in aspect.

"D'Arcy, please--" I didn't get another word out before he punched me in the face. His fist was hard as a slab of something really quite extraordinarily hard -- marble perhaps, or granite; the blow staggered me back and I flailed, trying not to trip over the bed behind me. He hit me again and my left hand found his coat, grabbing tight for balance. I swung with my right, but didn't even manage to touch him. I've always been much more a runner than a fighter, of course; being of rather slight build, boxing had never been a good bet for me. My fingers were in his pocket when he hit me again, but I'd got what I wanted. I fell to the floor when he struck and covered my head with my arms as he kicked me smartly in the ribs a couple of times. I gasped at the pain of it, hoping he'd not broken anything.

He stood over me, laughing. "Oh, that felt good," he said. "Your aunt said not to break you, but she didn't say I couldn't thump you a bit. You should be going to prison to rot, Wooster, not getting married to some innocent child; you don't deserve to get away with this." I peeked up from between the fingers of one hand. "Does he bugger you?" Stilton asked. I would have thought he'd sound disgusted, but I could swear he sounded excited by the prospect, his voice rough as gravel. "I can imagine him doing completely disgusting things to you, Wooster, completely disgusting things. I'll bet he bent you over that piano of yours and had you like a girl. Did you like it? Did he make you scream?"

The truth was, Jeeves had, and I did -- like it, I mean, not the screaming bit -- but Stilton made it sound filthy and wrong, sparking a nasty twisted feeling in my tum. "Please, just stop," I begged. I hurt. I was dizzy. I was dashed frightened as well, and terrified for Jeeves. Stilton had clocked me a good one in the head that first time and I could feel my eye already starting to swell up, a wet trickle of blood sneaking furtively down my forehead. He kicked me again, just because he could.

"It's really too bad you won't be in Steeple Bumpleigh tonight," he said, and he laughed again. "I'd take care of the both of you. Neither of you would be able to bugger anything again when I'd finished with you." With that, he turned like a large and furious blue top and steamed out the door, locking it behind him. I lay there for several minutes, trying to catch my breath, my small, precious treasure held safe in one fist beneath me.

***

I had failed. He would be taken from me and I would be locked in a cell in Colney Hatch if I couldn't find a way to escape from them quickly. I hoped Mr. Wooster would have the sense to run the instant they left him unguarded; he was more clever than his family knew and I could only trust that their casual dismissal of him would work in his favor. We had, years ago, made plans against a moment such as this and, if he followed my instructions as I'd bade him, I would try to meet him at a pre-arranged location in Paris within the week if I could not get him out of the house tonight.

Maple held one of my arms in a powerful and painful grip while Johnston, the footman, twisted my other arm at an agonizing angle to propel me forward down the hallway toward the Blue Room. I fought fiercely, but every time I threatened to break free, I received a vicious kick to my already injured knee. "Quit fighting," Johnston snarled, slamming me into a wall as we approached the Blue Room's door. It shocked the breath from me long enough for them to force me inside and bear me to my knees once again.

I fought my way to my feet, throwing my shoulder into Maple's chest, and he grunted with the force of my blow, staggering back two steps. Johnston took me by the hair and spat in my face, using his weight and one leg to trip me and topple me against the bed. Maple rushed me, jerking my arms up hard behind me until I feared he might dislocate one of my shoulders or an elbow. I gasped, trembling, as Johnston took hold of one of my ankles. I could not shake him from my leg despite my writhing, and he pulled a length of thick cord from one of his pockets and swiftly bound my ankles so tightly that I shuddered in pain. Together, they hauled me up onto the bed and left me lying on my face.

"They used to hang abominations like you," Johnston said. "It's too bloody bad they don't anymore." I turned my head to look up at them.

"Maple, please--"

The naked disgust in his face was shocking. "I'm ashamed to think you were ever my friend," he said quietly. The words hurt as much as any of the blows I'd just taken and I flinched. "You've violated the trust the family had in you," he continued, "and the trust we had in you. Who else have you molested in the years you've been around us, you viper?"

To speak would only have given them reason to strike me again, so I remained silent. Johnston took my feet and pulled them up behind me until he could knot the remainder of the cord that bound my ankles into the chain of the darbies fastened to my wrists. It was uncomfortable, but at least they rolled me onto my side so that I could breathe.

"You deserve everything you'll get, and more," Johnston said. The men turned and left me lying there, locking the door behind them.

I took several deep breaths, resisting the pain in my chest, and tried to take stock of my condition. My left knee was badly injured from the blows it had taken. My wrists and ankles were bound so tightly that they were already beginning to go numb. My right shoulder had been painfully wrenched and I did not know if it had been sprained, nor would I until the darbies were removed. My head had struck the wall and I was slightly dizzy still. I had been struck several times in the abdomen and the chest; there was some pain but I did not believe anything had been broken or ruptured. I had to get out of the handcuffs. Had they been fastened in front of me, I would have been able to get to my wallet, which I kept in the breast pocket of my uniform; I kept a small lockpick in it on the chance of misplaced keys or a need to open a locked drawer.

The fact that my hands were beginning to go numb could work in my favor. It might be possible to contort my hands until one of them could be forced through the small aperture, which would allow me to escape. There was some likelihood I would end up dislocating a thumb to accomplish this, but a dislocated thumb was far preferable to what would befall me in a mental asylum, particularly given that Lady Worplesdon quite literally did not care whether I lived or died. I could only thank God that we were not in Germany -- their 'cure' for homosexuality was nothing short of surgical mutilation. I shuddered and forced my mind from the image. I could not panic. I had to escape. I had to rescue Mr. Wooster. We had to get out of the house.

I struggled with the darbies for what must have been over fifteen minutes, fearing what might be happening to Mr. Wooster if he were in the hands of Constable Cheesewright. The man had threatened him with grievous bodily harm more than once in the past. My mind raced and I was unable to still it; I could feel my wrists being rubbed raw and bleeding as I twisted and pulled at the metal that bound me. My hands were not numb enough to erase the pain I was experiencing and it left me panting, my teeth clenched against it.

A soft sound at the window startled me, but my back was turned away from it and I could not see what was happening. I put more energy into my struggle, though I was exhausted and aching. After a moment, I heard the window open; it was too quiet to be heard outside the room, but I heard a gasp behind me.

"Oh, my God, Reggie, what have they done to you?" His voice was a horrified whisper.

I had never been happier -- or more frightened -- to hear Mr. Wooster's voice in my life. "You can't stay here, Bertie. You have to leave. If they find you--"

"I'm not leaving without you," he said, our conversation conducted in hushed tones. I felt his gentle touch on my cheek. "Your wrists are bleeding. How badly are you hurt?"

"I do not believe that I could exit via the window even if I were able to free my hands," I said. "There is a lockpick--"

"No need, old thing," he said. I could feel him at my wrists and twisted my head over my shoulder to look at him. His face was bleeding and his eye was blackened. I gasped, shocked. "I got Stilton's key when he hit me." There was a soft click and one of my wrists was freed. I suppressed a sharp groan at the pain when I moved my arm. As he freed my other hand, I flexed my fingers into a fist, clenching and releasing in an attempt to restore my circulation. The numbness exploded into an agonizingly painful tingling and I shook my hand as I rolled onto my back, moving my other hand as well.

"In my pocket," I gasped. "Coat pocket, a knife. Cut the ropes," I said. He nodded and did as I bid him, helping me to sit upright. Once my feet were free, he sat next to me for a moment, brushing my hair from my face. It was then that I realized he was wet. "You could have been killed out there," I said, angry. "What if you'd fallen?"

"You can't possibly mean that," he said, his voice soft but disbelieving. "After all the rickety ladders and drainpipes I've had to climb in order to satisfy auntly urges for larceny? This doesn't even address all the times I've scaled the ivy covered halls of the aged relations for the sake of boyish whatnot." He shook his head. "It's a bit wet out," he murmured, helping me to my feet, "but we can make it out of here. When we get to the roof, we can gambol across the slate like a pair of slightly damp felines and skin down the ivy to the garage, where our two seater awaits."

My feet were as numb as my hands, and I wavered in his grasp. "I don't know if I can," I whispered, fearing that I would impede his escape. "You must leave without me. Now that I'm free, I can try to get out through the servants' passages and meet you outside the gates. You must be away before Sir Roderick arrives." I wasn't certain I could accomplish this without being discovered -- no doubt they had the exits belowstairs guarded to prevent just such an occurrence.

He shook his head. "No. It's much too risky to let you try to scarper off alone. We can't split up. I'm not leaving you here, Reggie. I'm departing through that window and you're coming with me and that's all there is to it."

"If you fall, I could never forgive myself," I said.

"The longer we stand here arguing, the closer they'll be to discovering I'm gone and then they'll be in here to make sure you've not escaped too. If that happens, we'll never get out of here, and I won't let them have you, dash it! Now hush, and slick yourself out that window like a good chap. I'll keep hold of you if you need it. I won't fall, and I won't let you do so either." He steered me firmly toward the opening, the blue curtains rustling in the damp breeze. "It's only drizzling. Come on." He went out first and offered a hand to me. I could do nothing but take his hand and follow him.

***

It was a risk, and I knew it. Jeeves had been hurt worse than I'd feared, and he limped rather badly as I urged him to the window. I'd have to get him up the drainpipe in front of me so that I could be sure to catch him if he slipped. I couldn't let him see how bally terrified I was, so I let the legendary Wooster stubbornness come to the fore. Old Sieur de Wooster would have been dashed proud of me, if he wasn't ready to pike me for being a pansy first. The Code of the Woosters is quite strict when it comes to the rescuing of damsels in distress, though Jeeves was a dashed handsome valet, not a damsel. I'm not sure it mattered that much, really, given what we did together in the privacy of our own bed. After all the times he'd dredged me out of the _consommé_ , I obviously had to do something.

The ledges were wide enough to get a decent foothold, but his hands had been left in a bit of a state by those darbies and he was dangerously wobbly on his pins for the first couple of minutes because of his knee. We had to pause and hold our breath as Aunt Agatha passed by a window next to us, snarling like an ill-tempered panther with a thorn in its paw and a long wait for dinner service. I kept one hand on Jeeves's shoulder as we shimmied along, taking a little of his weight when his knee objected to our evening's activities.

It was the drain pipe looming before us like some rummy pillar of whatsit that stood between us and freedom. I had to get him up the blasted thing and he was looking more than a bit peaky when we got to it. "I don't know if I can," he whispered as I held him against the wall with one arm about his waist and my other hand wrapped snugly into the ivy. "My knee may not--"

"You have to, Reg," I insisted. "It's either up or down, and I really think down is a bad idea from here." We'd been making our way along the back of the old heap and the thorny hedges below would make for a nasty landing, whether we fell or shinned our way down. "The ivy's sturdy as the rigging on a bally warship. Just put a hand in it and grab onto the pipe. Hoist yourself up and I'll be right there with you. I'll take some of your weight if you need me."

He looked up into the drizzling sky, blinking in the rain. By now we were both wet and cold, and we had a long night ahead of us if we were going to try to get back to the metrop. "I'm too heavy for you to do that," he said, shaking his head. "No, Bertie. If I fell, I'd take you with me." I knew he wasn't afraid for himself; he was worrying far too much about me, though. Bertram was an old hand at this sort of wheeze, having scampered up the ivy like a lithe and carefree capuchin -- the monkey, not the cleric -- dozens of times over the years.

"I'd rather fall with you than let them have either of us," I insisted, and I meant every word of it. He looked at me, silent, for a long moment. There was an oddish light in his eyes. He took a bracing lungful and nodded. Reaching up, he grabbed one of the sturdier ivy vines and we started our climb.

It was a nervy experience, consisting of wobbling drainpipes, slipping valets, and ivy slivers in the palms. My fingers scraped on the brickwork, rubbing them raw as I leaned my chest against Jeeves's lower back to press him to the wall when he wavered. We were both breathless and shaking when we gained the roof. It was harder than I'd remembered, getting over the eaves onto the actual roofish bit, and the slate was slick in the rain, which had started coming down harder several minutes into our ascent. I'd have given Bingo's left arm for a Sherpa right then. I'd thought perhaps of giving my own, but I rather needed it at the mo., what?

We lay there next to each other for a shortish while, gasping like beached trout and clinging to the cold stone in utter exhaustion. I could see the slightly darker shadow of one of the metal ladders not far off, set against the glistening wet slate. I put one arm around him as we lay there, holding him. I could feel him shivering the slightest bit. I suspect I was as well. Once I'd got my breath back, I got to my feet and helped him up. "There's the ladder," I said, pointing at it. He nodded.

"I believe we can make it to the garage fairly quickly now," he said.

"Be careful, the roof's going to be like ice."

We cat-footed it up the ladder and across the peak of the roof, coming down the other side between two long angles, and followed the crevice along toward the end of the house. The garage was two storeys below us, on the ground floor. There would be another ladder there, I knew, and ivy from the garage roof down to the ground. I was nervous and in too much of a hurry to pay enough attention, though. One foot went out from under me as we squeezed round between two chimneys. I let out a manful squeak, and Jeeves's hand snapped out fast as one of those goosey whatsits that eats cobras for breakfast, snagging my shoulder before I went down. We both leaned against the chimney and he held me to it, panting harshly. I clung to the bricks and shook as I felt Jeeves's solid weight leaning into my back, his arms around me.

I don't know how long it was before we finally got our feet back on good old _terra_ mum, but it felt like the pyramids might have lost a few inches from wear in the meantime. We'd seen lights moving on the grounds around the house by the time we got there and I knew they were searching for us. I hoped that meant they were all out there, but I wasn't about to trust my bally awful luck.

Jeeves slowly and silently opened the side door to the garage and we saw the footman that had dragged him off; the chap was leaning against the hood of our two seater smoking a casual gasper. Jeeves pushed my head down abaft the bonnet of Uncle Percy's Gwynne -- I think abaft is what I mean, or one of those nautical thingummies -- and quickly closed the door behind us, crouching next to me without a sound. We knelt there for a moment and he got down on hands and knees and looked under the Gwynne, watching to see if the chap was going to move. After a moment, it appeared we hadn't been spotted. Jeeves put a finger to his lips and I nodded. He pressed his lips to my ear and breathed, "Wait here." It was not a suggestion. I nodded again and he shimmered off around the car, making his way toward our Aston Martin.

A moment later, there was a dull thud and a grunt and I poked the Wooster beak up over the bonnet of the Gwynne. Jeeves was standing there with a spanner in his hand, looking down. I stood, only to find the footman in a heap on the floor at his feet, gasping and blinking dizzily. "Oh, Lord," I said.

"I didn't hit him terribly hard," Jeeves said as I scurried over to him. "We shall have to gag him and affix him to something so that he won't be able to alert the others." I nodded and handed Jeeves the darbies he'd been chained up with. They were still a bit messy with his blood. A wicked grin sparked on his lips for a fraction of a sec before he cuffed the chap soundly to the rear wheel of Uncle Percy's car. Jeeves pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffed it into the footman's mouth before the rotter could protest, then tugged the man's tie off and gagged him tight with that. "Bertie, start the car," Jeeves said, urgent and still quiet. "I'll open the doors. We must move quickly. Sir Roderick could arrive at any time and I would like to be very far from here when he does."

I nodded and sprang into the old Aston with the bounce of a particularly springy kangaroo, cranking the engine over to get the beast rumbling. Jeeves had the doors open in a trice and I beetled up to him to let him get in. That done, I took one deep breath. I jammed the accelerator to the floor and we roared out of Bumpleigh Hall through the rain, bounding like a somewhat jittery cheetah toward freedom.

***

If I had thought the rain unpleasant while we clambered along the roof of Bumpleigh Hall, it had become a deluge by the time we'd gone five miles in Mr. Wooster's Aston Martin. The vehicle had not been designed with such weather in mind and the rain soaked us in the open seats, the wind making the journey more miserable. "I can't wait to get back to the flat," he said, shouting to be heard over the wind and rain.

"We cannot return to the flat, Bertie," I answered.

"What? Not return to the flat?"

I shook my head, though he would not be able to see it clearly in the dark. "We do not know if Lady Worplesdon will have agents awaiting us when we arrive in an attempt to bend us once again to her will. It is possible she will have had Sir Roderick send staff from Colney Hatch with an intent to take both of us into custody."

"Oh, dear. You're probably right." Even through the noise of our travel, I could hear his distress. My injured knee was throbbing steadily and I wanted nothing more than a hot bath, dry pyjamas, and to lie next to my lover in a warm bed. "What shall we do, Reg?"

"I would recommend we acquire a room in a hotel once we return to London. From there, we can plan our next steps."

"Right ho, old thing. A hotel it is. But, I say, are they going to let us in looking like a pair of waterlogged spaniels?" We were battered, bloodied and bruised, but still clad in our dinner dress. By my reckoning, we would be able to enter the city by half-past midnight.

"I suspect we will not raise any more eyebrows than do the usual inebriate antics of many a young gentleman of your acquaintance," I said. "We must have a warm, dry place to tend our injuries and rest, Bertie. We may not have many resources to hand at the moment, but both of us have money with us and this will quiet any potential objections."

We were silent after that, both of us too exhausted to shout against the wind and the driving rain. The journey to London would ordinarily have taken approximately two and a half hours, but in the rain and darkness, it was just over three before we came to a suitable establishment. Mr. Wooster handed the two seater over to the hotel staff and we entered the lobby, where I engaged a room for us. I ensured that it was large, with two beds for appearance's sake, and a bath. I also enquired after a telephone, as I had two calls to make before I could sleep.

We were soaked and shivering violently, and I was barely able to walk. Putting any weight on my left knee was absolute agony and it had already begun to swell. The concierge at the front desk had given us a concerned look; although the rain had washed away the blood, Mr. Wooster sported bruising on his face, and my wrists were still painfully raw, irritated by the cuffs of my shirt and morning coat, blood staining the white cloth. Neither of us had hats and we dripped disgracefully upon the carpet. I requested bandages and a small first aid kit before we ascended in the lift, maintaining my professional mask as best I could under the circumstances until we had locked the door of our room behind us.

My first act upon entering the room was to begin drawing a bath. "You should get into the tub, Bertie," I told him.

"What about you?" he asked, giving me a worried look.

"I must make two telephone calls. I shall join you shortly."

He nodded, looking utterly done in. "See that you do." Turning away, he stripped off his clothing as I picked up the receiver.

My first telephone call was to the service desk downstairs. I read out a brief telegram text to be sent to Mr. Wooster's financial office, consisting of a short phrase that would trigger several actions on their part as soon as they received it when the office opened in the morning. It would ensure our security in the event that Mr. Wooster's family attempted to seize his assets. By that time, he was getting into the bath, the water still running.

The second telephone call was to my niece, Mabel. She had, some years ago, married one Charles Edward "Biffy" Biffen, a friend of Mr. Wooster's from his club. Although she was my niece, she was only a few years younger than me, and we had grown up together, almost as close as siblings. She had also been aware of my particular proclivities since we had both been quite young, and she was the only person upon whom I could call and whom I could trust at this juncture.

Mabel answered the telephone herself; the staff was no doubt off duty and asleep at this hour. I had obviously awakened her.

"Hello?" she murmured.

"Mabel," I said, "I can only sincerely apologize for awakening you at this hour, but--"

"Reg? What time is... oh, Lord, it's nearly one in the morning. What's wrong? What's happened?" She knew that I would only have called this late if the situation were dire, and her voice was suddenly wakeful and concerned.

I took a bracing breath. My voice shook despite my best effort at control. "We've been found out," I said.

"Oh, God, no. Are you all right? Is Bertie all right?" I could hear her struggling to keep the frantic edge from her voice.

"We're together and safe, at least for the moment," I said. "It was a near thing."

"Thank God. Where are you?"

"We are at the Savoy, in room 217, registered under false names."

She paused for a moment. "Do you need the suitcase you left here for an emergency?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"I'll be there in... an hour and a half, I think. I'll have to tell Charles."

"Of course," I said. "Thank you, Mabel. You are a Godsend."

She made a small sound and I could almost hear her smile. "And you're my favorite uncle. I'll see you and Bertie soon."

I rang off and began undressing as I limped into the _saille de bain_ to join Mr. Wooster. He was already seated in the tub, the water still running. His clothing lay in a puddle on the tile and I dropped mine atop his soaked evening wear. I could not control my shuddering from the cold and I could see he was still shivering as well, even though he was now submerged in the heat. It would be some time, I knew, before either of us were quite warm enough again.

He looked up at me and his eyes widened. "Oh, God," he whispered. Reaching up to me, he helped me ease myself into the tub with him, letting me settle between his legs and rest my back against him. "Reggie, I almost lost you. You're looking like the end of a bad rugger match, old thing. What did they do to you?" He held me close in his arms, resting his chin gently upon my shoulder, and I could hear the slight stutter of his breathing as he shivered.

"It doesn't matter," I said. I lay a hand over his arm where it rested across my chest. "It's over now and we're safe, Bertie." With my body in the water, the level had risen considerably, so I turned off the faucets and breathed in the quiet of the room. "You're hurt as well." I had seen the bruises on his chest and arms, purpling like the bruise on his face.

"We should get you seen by a doctor, old thing," he murmured, kissing my neck.

I shook my head. "There's no need. The injuries are superficial. With some slight assistance, I'll be able to bandage my wrists, and the scrapes we've sustained can be treated with Mercurochrome."

"But your knee--"

"Can be elevated and iced," I said. At the moment, so long as I was still able to limp, there were far more important matters to consider. Leaving the country was an absolute priority.

He sighed. "We're going to have to leave England now, aren't we?" He sounded unutterably sad.

"I'm afraid the situation has made our departure a necessity," I answered. I turned slightly to look at him. "We both knew this might happen eventually."

His arms tightened around me and I couldn't help wincing as he exerted pressure on my bruised ribs. "Oh, sorry, sorry," he said, loosening his embrace. "I mean to say, I suppose I was just hoping it would be a few more years," he murmured. "We're in a bally awful state right now, aren't we, with only a pile of wet evening clothes between us and whatsit."

"Mabel is on her way with the suitcase right now," I told him, and he relaxed with a release of both breath and tension. We were slowly starting to warm from the heat of the water.

"Dashed lucky she and Biffy weren't off on the continent somewhere, then," he said, and a tiny smile crept over his lips, though it did not offset the sadness in his eyes. The portmanteau in question held a pair of tweed traveling suits and several days worth of underthings for each of us, along with necessities for our toilette, and fifty pounds. It would not be much, but it was sufficient to allow us an escape to France if we had no other options.

"I have already sent the telegram arranging for the transfer of all our funds and deposits to the Swiss account," I said. "It will arrive as the bank's doors open in the morning."

"Jolly good," he said. "And the lock-box?" The box contained our passports and five hundred pounds in currency, denominated in pounds, US dollars, and francs. We would be able to survive on this for some time if we were not able to gain access to Mr. Wooster's accounts.

"I shall see to it in the morning," I told him.

"No." He shook his head. "Your knee's a mess. You'll stay here and have it up while I beetle on over there and pick up the whatsit. I wish we could get into the flat, though."

"I shall have Mabel reconnoitre the situation for us tomorrow," I said. "She can go purporting to call upon you and report back to us if the flat is being watched."

"You really do think of everything," he said softly.

"Thank you for coming for me," I whispered, twining his raw, bloody fingers with my own. I had been angry at first, in the heat of the moment, knowing what he had risked for my sake. But as the drive to the city continued I realized that, given the state of my knee, I would most likely not have made it out at all, even if I had managed to slip the darbies.

His breath caught and he shuddered, his arms tightening slightly, this time avoiding the bruises. "I couldn't leave you. I could never leave you, Reg. God knows you'd have done the same for me." That was absolutely certain. I would willingly have risked my life for him; that he had done so for my sake touched me deeply. "I don't care if they _had_ managed to bung you into Colney Hatch. I'd have hired a thug to break you out if I had to. A dozen of them, even."

I chuckled. "Bertie, you wouldn't know where to find thugs for hire."

"Well, no, not at the mo.," he admitted, "but I'd have found out. I'd never have left you there. I'd have made the mad dash on the dock whilst awaiting Aunt Agatha's beazel if I had to, and then I'd have come for you. After what she did to us..." He buried his face in my neck and I detected the sound of a tiny, suppressed sniffle. "You're everything to me," he whispered.

Turning in his arms, I took him into my own and embraced him, kissing his face gently, over and over. "As you are to me," I murmured between my kisses. He was warmth and reassurance and safety to me in that moment and I loved him beyond any capacity I possessed to express. I had trusted him and he had fulfilled that trust far more thoroughly than I had any right to hope for. His family were fools for underestimating him, for not valuing him as he should have been valued, but it had been to our advantage and I was glad of it.

We kissed deeply, too exhausted and shaken for anything more. This, as much as the heat of the bath, warmed us both until our shivering stilled. Eventually we surfaced to regain our breath. "When will Mabel get here?" he asked, pensive.

I had lost track of the time. "Within the hour," I estimated.

"We'd best get sloshed off, then, and get your wrists taken care of."

I nodded. "I concur." The water had soaked away at the scabbing and there was some slight, renewed bleeding from them. My knee throbbed, aching badly, and I needed something for the pain. I would have to acquire ice, but that could be called for from the room.

By the time Mabel arrived, we were both bandaged where necessary, wrapped in the warm, heavy dressing gowns provided by the hotel, and my leg was elevated with ice packed around my knee. Mr. Wooster opened the door, not allowing me to rise to attend to it. Mabel entered quickly, setting the suitcase down near the bed, her face tight with concern. After briefly embracing Mr. Wooster, she came to sit on the bed and slipped her arms about me. I let her hold me, hugging her to me tightly in my relief.

"Thank God you're safe," she said softly. "I wasn't going to let myself believe it until I'd seen you with my own eyes." She kissed my cheek and released me, regaining her composure. Mr. Wooster came and joined us, sitting at my other side.

"Thanks so much for coming, old thing," he said. "I don't know what we'd have done without you."

Mabel smiled. "Charles sends his regards," she said. "He's worried, as I was. He wanted to come with me, but I thought it would be easier if it was just me. I'll need to go shortly, though."

"Of course," I said. "Mabel, do you know if Richard is in port at the moment?"

She pursed her lips. "I don't, but I can find out tomorrow. I know they're due soon, if they didn't make landfall yesterday."

"Richard?" Mr. Wooster asked.

"Our cousin," Mabel said. "He's first mate on a packet ship that makes regular runs from London to Buenos Aires."

His brow wrinkled. "A packet ship? You mean that carries pianos and budgies and coconuts and such?"

She nodded and I said, "Indeed. It might not be safe for us to book passage on a passenger liner, but if we could find an amenable packet ship or a tramp steamer, they do occasionally take passengers for some slight extra income."

Mr. Wooster paused, uncertain. "I don't suppose they have first class cabins," he said.

Mabel made a valiant attempt to hide a smile. I coughed gently. "No, Bertie," I answered. "Space on working ships is valuable and most of it is used for cargo. We will most likely end up in a very small cabin in the crew's quarters. It will probably be two small bunks and very little else, but we will be fed and sheltered, and we will be away from England."

"Well," he said. He sighed, closing his eyes and lowering his head.

I was aware that he hated the thought of leaving England behind, but he knew as well as I the necessity of it. His own family had turned on him, and Lady Worplesdon would stop at nothing to bring him back under her control if we remained within her reach. I believed him to still be in shock from the whole misadventure, and hoped that he would not shatter before I could spirit him away to safety. He is an optimistic and resilient young man, but even Mr. Wooster has limits. He prefers his routine, and the comforts of home; even when we have had to flee the country previously, it was under circumstances that were luxurious and would allow his swift return. This departure would be a drastic ending for him and I was uncertain of his reaction once its stark reality penetrated his consciousness.

"Will you do one other thing for us, Mabel?" I asked.

"Anything, Reggie," she answered.

"I need you to visit the flat," I said, explaining my reasons.

"I'll be back tomorrow around noon with your answers," she said. "For now, it's late, and I really must get home. I'm sure Charles is fretting."

Mr. Wooster rose as Mabel stood. "Thanks awfully," he said. "I can't tell you how grateful I am. And tell Biffy we're quite all right."

She smiled gently at him and took his hand. "I shall. You're family, Bertie. We do take care of our own." His face colored slightly, but he didn't speak. She released his hand then leaned down and kissed my cheek. "Rest, Reggie," she told me. "We'll take care of this." I knew that she would.

***

Before Mabel arrived, I was already limp as a wet bit of string, but by the time she left I was more tired than a terrier who'd been set to the task of dragging off a team of Clydesdales then sent round to the pub to do the washing up after closing. As Jeeves was already in bed, I locked the door, doused the brightly shining, and dropped as a stone onto the sheets beside him. He tugged the duvet up over me and we wriggled close and clapped the limbs about each other in exhaustion and relief. I wouldn't have thought I could sleep, what with the old Wooster onion swimming with worries like an overcrowded aquarium, but I dropped off quickly.

Jeeves was already awake when my eyes opened in the ack emma, but he hadn't got out of bed. "Good morning," he said softly.

I groaned and lifted my head to look at him. "What time is it?"

"It's four minutes after seven o'clock."

I groaned and dropped my head back on the goosedown. "Augh. The bally sun's not even up yet."

"Actually, the sunrise this morning was at six seventeen ante meridiem," he said.

Rubbing my eyes, I yawned and murmured, "Enough about meridiems, Reggie. Dash all meridiems. It's much too early for them."

"Very good, Bertie," he said, and I could hear the amusement in his voice. It would have been invisible to anyone else of course -- not that voices are visible, but you can no doubt follow the thought. When I tried to sit up, bits of the corpus registered vo-something-ous objections and I may have hissed just a bit. Jeeves rolled onto his side and lay a hand on my tum. "Do you require an aspirin?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "but I'll get it. You're not to get up except to have a bath and whatnot until after we've heard from Mabel."

The expression on his face bespoke stern disagreement. "There are things--"

I raised the covers and took a peek beneath. "There are things that I'll be doing this morning _alone_ while you rest that rummy knee, old thing. If we're to dash off and hie ourselves from England's green and pleasant whatsit, you have to be able to walk, and you shan't be able to until that knee looks less like an angry and disgruntled pineapple and more like a part of your leg."

The air of displeasure in the room increased significantly due to a slightly dented feudal spirit. "I will admit, it is quite painful," he said.

I wrestled with the bottle of aspirin tablets from the first aid kit on the side table, taking a couple for myself and handing him a few as well. "I'll get some water," I said. "You wait there." He nodded and I fetched us a glass, taking my own pills before I handed him the wet and sloshy. "I'll run us a bath," I said. "God alone knows why I woke up at this hour after everything we went through last night, but I suppose we might as well take advantage of it."

After he dashed his pills down, he nodded, setting the glass on the side table. "I will ring for breakfast, then," he answered. "I'll have them bring it up in an hour. That should allow us sufficient time to prepare ourselves. We should also ensure that the other bed is sufficiently rumpled as to allay suspicion."

I gave him a bright, sunny grin. "Spiffing. Shall I molest you in the interim, old fruit?"

There was a bit of a twinkle in the Jeevesian e. "That would doubtless be a pleasant diversion, sir," he said. I made to pounce upon him, but he stopped me with a raised finger. " _After_ you have run the bath," he said, and pointed toward the _saille de bain_.

"Well, all right, then," I grumbled, not entirely pleased to have my lovely plan interrupted. Then again, after diverting him in the bath, we'd have tea and a spot of eggs and b. to look forward to, so it wasn't at all bad, really. I ankled off to rumple the other bed and open the spigots.

He smiled. "Thank you, Bertie."

"Right ho." A few minutes later, with the bathtub filling and Bertram's teeth now sparkling clean and fresh as a field of dew-bespangled daisies, I popped over to the bed and helped Jeeves to his feet. He wasn't moving well, but that was mostly due to his inability to put any weight on his left leg. We hobbled into the bathroom together and I lowered him into the tub then joined him in the blissfully warm suds. I think I'd put in a touch too much, as the fizzy stuff had overflowed rather a bit, but his only comment was a sharply raised ebony eyebrow.

In between the scrubbing up, there was a good deal of kissing and rubbing and stroking that resulted in the sort of complete bally satisfaction that Jeeves only provides when we're alone together. After everything that had happened last night, I was grateful for it, and for him, even if we'd been knocked around and left somewhat the worse for wear. When we were done, he was relaxed and grinning, leaning against the back of the tub with his dark eyes half closed. He was, without doubt, the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen in my life and I still had no idea how I'd ended up so lucky as to have a man like this as a lover. One would think old Jove himself would have nipped down and made off with him at the first opportunity. Not that I wanted anything of the sort to happen, mind you!

"What are you thinking about, Bertie?" he asked, as I lay in his arms looking at him.

"You," I said. "Ask Bertram at any random moment what he's thinking about and the honest answer would always be you."

He flushed delightfully and kissed me again. "Thou art too dear for my possessing," he whispered, his warm, wet fingers on my cheek and tracing along my jaw.

"You're a dashed soppy thing, aren't you?" I teased.

"I will admit to a certain taste for the romantic," he said, favoring me with a look that dared me to make something of it. I didn't. Breakfast would be along in a flick or two of the lamb's hinter end and we had to make ready for the day.

Once we were out and dry, Jeeves insisted on doing the usual dressing of Bertram wheeze. "I am already up," he said, "and it would please me to be of some use today at least."

I agreed, though somewhat reluctantly. I didn't want him to be on his feet for very long. I'd have to pick him up a wangee or some such when I went out, as I had no idea how long his leg was going to be all cocked up, but he'd probably need it for a few days at least. The old gam wasn't looking that good, after all. As we finished tossing on the outer wrappings, there was a knock at the door. I opened it and found a young chap bearing a tray. I had him put it on the dresser and slipped him a tip and he ankled out.

We got ourselves outside of the old eggs and b. in short order, after which I got ready to enter the teeming streams of humanity out in the streets of the metrop like a swift and confident salmon. A salmon with two legs and a brown tweed traveling suit, perhaps, but swift and confident nonetheless. "Bertie," Jeeves said, taking my hand before I opened the door.

"What is it, old thing?"

There was a solemn look in his eyes. "Please, be careful. Don't let yourself be seen by anyone you know, and return quickly."

I nodded. "Right ho. I shall be as the zephyr wind, all invisible except to God, as that poet chappie had it. And you'll stay here, right?"

"Indeed, Bertie. I shall remain here until you return. Mabel will be here in a few hours. We should both be here to speak with her."

"Jolly good," I said, planting a bit of the lip action on his cheek. "I'll be back before I left. Toodle-pip!" With a jaunty grin, I biffed off to dig up a bit of the oofy stuff and our passports.

***

Mr. Wooster was gone for only two hours. I'm afraid I fretted a great deal during his absence, being unable to physically do anything but sit with my leg up, icing my knee. It had swollen to more than twice its normal size after the abuse it had taken the night before, and there was nothing else to be done about it. All the necessary events had been set in motion and I could only wait until new information arrived so that we could act upon it. As soon as he departed, I had the hotel staff see to our evening wear, but that was the only thing left undone at this juncture. I was assured that the clothing would be returned, cleaned and pressed, within the hour.

The establishment I had chosen for keeping our passports was in a well-to-do part of the city, but it was not one Mr. Wooster ordinarily frequented. The chances of his encountering one of his friends or relations was remote, making the situation somewhat safer for us. Although I was uneasy during his absence, I settled onto the bed to peruse Mrs. Pinker's diary. I had acquired it late in the afternoon, from one of the kitchen maids; there had been a plan afoot to ruin Mrs. Pinker because she had caused a great deal of pain and difficulty for some of the kitchen staff during her previous visit to Bumpleigh Hall. It proved to be enlightening reading. The volume would be quite extraordinarily useful once we were safely away from England; I bent my mind to the plotting of vengeance for robbing us of our home and our comfortable lives. Young master Edwin Craye was currently beyond my reach, but he had no way of genuinely understanding the harm he had done us and I would not pursue the matter.

My reading was interrupted by the return of our clothing, but this was only a moment's distraction. I folded everything carefully and put it all in our suitcase. I had no idea if we would need evening wear in the near future, but it was best to have it with us.

I greeted Mr. Wooster with intense relief upon his return. He had, surprisingly, purchased a cane for me in an act of considerate foresight. "It'll be easier than you leaning on me, old thing," he said as he handed it to me.

"You did not encounter anyone of your acquaintance, I take it?"

He shook his head. "No. Really, Reg, it's much too early in the day for most of them, don't you know. It's rather too early for me, for that matter." He paused with a small, tired sigh. "When will Mabel be along?" he asked.

"An hour, perhaps," I said. He produced our passports and the money we had set aside from one of his pockets.

"I could use another spot of the old refreshing leaf and a gasper," he said, sitting back in one of the chairs and taking a cigarette from its silver case. Being near enough to do so, I lit it for him. He inhaled deeply, his face strained and pensive, his blackened eye even more distressing in the light of day. My heart ached to see him like this.

"I shall call and have a pot sent up."

"That would be utterly spiffing," he said, blowing a long, slow breath of smoke toward the ceiling. A shaft of morning light from the window passed through it as it rose, insubstantial, on the air. "I must say, Reggie, I'm nervous as a cat in an adage at the mo. I hate this waiting about wheeze. It rankles. The nerves twinge and shudder like timid dormice when faced by hatters not quite in their right mind."

"I do understand," I said, after having rung for tea. "We are in an uncomfortable situation, and such things do make waiting more difficult." I sat in the chair next to his, moving about slightly more easily now that I had a cane upon which to rest some of my weight. I would not be quick, but I would at least be mobile if a rapid departure became necessary. "I also am somewhat uneasy, but we have done all that may be done until we have further information. That will arrive with my niece, very soon."

"I know, Reggie, I know." He rested his chin in one hand, leaning on the arm of his chair. Mr. Wooster stared out the window for several silent minutes, his cigarette dangling from his fingers. I granted him his silence; it agreed with my own unsettled mood.

I opened the door when the tea arrived, allowing the maid to carry it to the table between Mr. Wooster's chair and my own. Once she departed, I sat with him again and we sipped our tea and spoke of inconsequential things, both of us preoccupied with the imponderables that would decide our course in the next few days.

***

Mabel and Biffy showed up at our door right about lunchtime. Biffy wouldn't remember his own name if everyone wasn't calling him by it all the time, but he has an uncanny instinct for showing up just as one is strapping on the old nosebag. Rather like Tuppy in that, actually, though he's not quite the professional trencherman young Glossop is at all. They told us that, just as Jeeves suspected, Aunt Agatha had rallied the troops and our place was being watched.

"Several in the lobby," she'd said, "and one up near the back stairway on your floor, probably in case you'd come in through the servant's entrance." Biffy noted that they were rather large chaps, and perhaps a touch rough-looking. We sat and talked over a few pensive sandwiches and coffee, though it was Jeeves and Mabel doing most of the talking. I couldn't quite bring myself to join in the convo., being somewhat distraught over not being able to get back into the flat at all.

It wasn't just England I'd be leaving behind, it was everything -- home, friends, the bits and bobs that passed for my life. My club. My family. I had no idea what Aunt Dahlia or young Angela would think of this whole ballyhoo. I'm sure Aunt Agatha had already sent out the carrier pigeons of the apocalypse to the old flesh and blood, letting her know how I'd disgraced them this time. I couldn't wrap the grey matter around it, really. It was all much too large, like finding a tarantula on one's tea tray -- everything else paled to insignificance.

The only good thing we'd learned from the Biffen appearance was that the sailing Jeeves -- that being Richard -- would dock later that afternoon and that his ship would be in port for two days, shifting cargo thingummies about and reloading for South America. And so it was that this Wooster and his Jeeves found themselves in a very rummy bit of the metrop after the fall of night, gazing up at a rather smaller ship than I'd expected, suitcase in hand. The ship didn't have the suitcase in hand. That would have been me, as ships don't have hands. Well, not the type attached to the end of one's wrists, I mean.

Jeeves had me perch out of the way on a coil of rope near a towering pile of crates and sit with our suitcase while he hobbled up the gangplank and ahoyed the chap at the top of it. They exchanged a few words and there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing by a young lad, who eventually brought a tallish, distinguished looking chap up to where Jeeves waited. They talked for several minutes, finally nodding together, and said young lad nipped off in my direction and hailed me.

"Mr. Wooster?" he asked, looking me up and down with a bit of a tilt to his lips, finally fixing his gaze on my purpling e. He couldn't have been more than seventeen. I wasn't sure if he was even shaving yet, for he had a face like a tyke in nappies, _sans_ unpleasant rash.

"When last I looked," I told him.

He chuckled. "I'm Able Seaman Todd, sir. First Mate says you're to come aboard, sir." He reached down and snapped up the suitcase.

"Oh, right ho," I said. I followed him along and up the ramp, where I joined Jeeves, the tallish d. l. chap, and the other chap with them.

"Richard, this is Mr. Bertram Wooster. Bertie, my cousin, Mr. Richard Jeeves. He is the First Mate of the _Pelham Grenville_." The other chap didn't get introduced. I assumed he was some other mate-y sort who wasn't quite as important as a First Mate must be. I was entirely uncertain how many mates a ship actually required.

"What ho, Mr. Jeeves?" I offered him a friendly paw and he gave it a shake, despite that it seemed odd to be calling anyone 'Mr. Jeeves' after so many years with my Jeeves. He was tall and broad shouldered, like my own Jeeves, with equally ebony hair and rather a look of excessive intelligence about him -- again, much like my own Jeeves. Richard squinted just a touch and was rather more tanned and wrinkled about the face, though, looking like my Jeeves might if he'd been left out in a salt breeze for about seven years too long.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Wooster." He patted the shoulder of the young lad who still clutched our suitcase. "Mr. Todd, these gentlemen will be shipping aboard with us to Buenos Aires. Go put their bag in Smitty's cabin and tell him he's to bunk with Abernathy this leg of the voyage."

"Aye aye, sir!" Young Todd snapped a salute at the Jeevesian cousin and dashed off along the deck toting our bag.

"Now, then, Reggie, let's you and your friend come to my office." He led the way for us, weaving in and out among the various seaworthy salts who were avast me heartying and flinging ropes and aweighing anchors and shivering timbers and such in what looked to me like utter nautical chaos.

Said office was a tiny bit of a thing -- a desk and a chair and a cabinet and not much else. There were folders lying about on the desk looking quite official, and thingummies hanging from the walls. One wall had a round porthole in it, though it was rather dark out and the light inside the office reflected in it, making it more a mirror than a window. Richard had Jeeves sit in the chair. He leaned against his desk while I stood behind Jeeves, seeing my man from the perspective from which he usually viewed the Wooster corpus.

It had been a longish day for both of us, filled with a great deal of waiting and worrying and skulking about unseen, and I was feeling somewhat like a badly used tea-towel, but it didn't look like I'd have a place to lay the old onion for a bit yet. Jeeves appeared slightly deflated himself and I knew his knee was paining him quite badly. I could see it in the tightness about his eyes and the severe way he held himself. I lay one hand on his shoulder and could feel the tightness in him ease just a touch.

"You lads need to remember that this is a working ship," Richard said. He looked at me. "It's not a fancy passenger vessel. We're slower, and there won't be much in the way of entertainment while you're aboard. You can always have a game of cards or acey-deucey with the crew, and some of the lads do like a bit of music after their duty hours at night, but for the most part you'll need to make your own way. In port like this, it's always a scramble, what with loading and unloading the cargo. It'll be a bit calmer at sea. You can join me in the officer's mess at mealtimes, of course. There's a steward to take care of all of that business or, if you prefer, you can chow down with the crew in the galley, your choice. The food's slightly better in officer country." He smiled a wry little smile that made him seem rather warmer than I'd thought at first. Something like the difference between an irritated Alsatian and a largeish and somewhat busy collie, if you know what I mean.

"I'll expect you to stay out of the way of the crew when they're working, and stay out of the engine rooms belowdecks. It's dirty and dangerous down there, and I don't expect a toff like yourself," he nodded at me, "would want to be in the midst of it anyway."

He looked over at Jeeves. "With that gamey knee, you'll need to be careful on the ladders, but you know how to handle them, as I recall."

Jeeves nodded. "Indeed, Richard. It will not be a problem." I wondered when Jeeves had learned whatever trick it was they meant.

Richard told us where and when it was safe to smoke -- apparently it wasn't allowed just anywhere because having something catch fire at sea was an extraordinarily bad idea -- and laid out the ship's schedule for us, including when we'd be setting sail late the day after tomorrow. He explained some of the safety regulations and where lifeboats and vests might be found, in case of an extremely southerly iceberg or other unfortunate mishap. I fully intended to hide myself in my room until then, not wanting to take a chance on being seen by one of the draconic aunt's spies. She'd probably hired the rooks and the seagulls, for all I knew. I had no idea if she'd think to look for us trying to leave the country like this, but we were so close to actually being safe that I didn't want to cock it up at all. No, Bertram would bury himself under a blanket in his bunk and not poke his beak out for a moment. Naturally, I'd prefer Jeeves's company under said b., but I didn't think he'd be ankling about much, what with his knee looking like a fretful porpentine.

About the time Richard finished up his chat, young Todd returned. "Smitty's moved his seabag, sir," he said. "The racks are ready for the passengers."

"I say. Racks don't sound at all comfortable," I said. They sounded rather torturous and medieval, in fact.

"He is referring to bunks, Bertie," Jeeves told me.

"Oh. Right ho."

"Right then, Mr. Todd," Richard said. "You take Mr. Wooster about and show him where the officer's mess, the head, and his cabin are. He's looking a bit puny and he might want to be getting some shut-eye, I think."

"Aye aye, sir," Todd said.

"What about Reggie?" I asked.

"I should like to stay for a little while and talk with my cousin," Jeeves answered, "if that would be acceptable."

"Oh, accept away, old fruit," I said, and he favored me with that approving twitch of the lips that signified a pleased Jeeves. "Familial bonds and all that." I'll admit it caused a pang in the chestal region to know my own f. b. had just been rather sharply broken.

After a few more words here and there, Todd led me off on a bit of a merry chase about the decks to show me the lay of the whatsit. It was entirely different than any of the ocean liners I'd ever taken; tight and crowded, the thing had a bally peculiar odor nearly everywhere belowdecks. It was a bit unpleasant, but there was nothing to be done for it; the Cunard line this was not. Things looked worn and a touch shabby about the edges, like they'd all been overused and underfed. There were no proper stairways; to get from one deck to another, you had to go down a ladderish thingummy. It wasn't quite like the rickety things I'd had to climb for various aunts. It was more a sort of cross between a ladder and a dashed steep and narrow stairway, really. I tried to go down it like a regular stairway, but it was slow and awkward. Todd showed me how to skin down the thing in a trice, facing the steps while sliding down the handrails rather than using the treads, which was much more fun than I'd expected, though a bit of a trick the first couple of times.

There were chaps still working nearly everywhere I looked, and some lurking about in the passageways having a chat. The lights belowdecks were all red. I thought it dashed odd, but Todd said they did this after dark so you could go from the main deck to belowdecks at night without having to wait until your eyes adjusted. By the time I'd been shown to my cabin, I was all turned about and I wasn't at all certain I'd be able to find my billowy portions with both hands and a map, as one of my American friends would have it. Jeeves would no doubt have a much better idea of how to find things once he'd been squired about by his cousin, so I thought I'd leave it in his always-capable hands.

The cabin itself was a squeaker of a thing, narrow and even tighter than the passageways I'd been led through. Jeeves would fit, but a chap much larger than that broad shouldered paragon would likely have trouble. There were two very narrow bunks bolted to a wall, one atop the other. There was a wee bit of a sliding curtain you could pull along the side to keep out the light. Our suitcase was stashed in a little enclosed space beneath the lower bunk so it couldn't slosh about and get underfoot while we were at sea. A pair of small metal lockers were built into the opposite wall, and a tiny desk with a chair, and a lamp mounted on the wall over it. It wasn't at all to the usual standard, but it seemed it was all I had for the mo. At least Jeeves would be with me. Todd left me there staring at the place.

Tired as I was, it was still bally obvious to me that Jeeves would never be able to heave himself into the top bunk, and neither of them would be wide enough for both of us, so I was resigned to sleeping alone in the uppermost of the two. Too knackered to wait up, I got myself out of the traveling tweeds and hoisted the Wooster corpus into the upper bunk, hoping I'd not roll over and fall out in the middle of the night. I knew I'd wake when Jeeves arrived.

***

When the young seaman escorted Mr. Wooster away, Richard relaxed slightly, folding his arms over his chest as he looked at me. "You lot look like you've had a rough couple of days," he said. He nodded at my bad knee. "Will you be all right, Reg?"

"I'm uncertain," I admitted. "I don't know how much damage was done. I was more immediately concerned with procuring safe passage from England."

He sighed and nodded. "I never thought I'd see the day you'd be in trouble, cousin mine. Never of the sort that would have you leaving England, at least, what with you being so proper and all." He tilted his head and gave me a sharp, assessing look. "Unless it was that young gentleman of yours, and you just got in the way."

"It might be best not to speak of it," I said, hesitant. I did not know what Richard would think, though I was aware that men at sea often resorted to relations with one another, given the lack of female companionship.

He shrugged. "Whatever it is, Reg, I'll not betray family. You should know that. A man who spends his life at sea, well, he sees more things than you'd ever credit. I doubt you could shock me at all."

I considered our situation for a few minutes. We had so few allies, and Richard was an honorable man; he had given his word that we would be safe with him. Yet what I was -- not only was it illegal, but most people reacted with self-righteous disgust or anger or revulsion to the very idea. Richard pulled a pipe from his pocket and patiently filled it with tobacco, eventually lighting it, the smoke wreathing him in the dim light as he puffed at it to encourage its combustion.

"It's all right," he said, letting smoke slowly trickle from his lips and nostrils. "There's no need for you to say anything. Just know that you're safe here."

"I..." I took a deep breath. He was my cousin, and he was a sailor. He had undoubtedly seen such things many times over the years, and the bonds of familial affection were, in my experience, far stronger among the Jeeveses than the Woosters. They might well withstand this particular flaw in my person. "Bertie and I... we have an understanding," I said softly.

Richard nodded. "Hmm." He puffed at the pipe again, the sound soft against the underlying rumble of the ship's generators. "Can't say as I approve, Reg. It's just not natural. But I can say I think that British law's too bloody harsh about it. Now the Argentines, they don't really care. Blokes like that, they're not flaunting it in the streets over there, but at least it's not illegal. You stay quiet about it, you should be safe enough."

"That was the impression I had acquired," I agreed. I had done some discreet research several years ago, before Mr. Wooster and I had come to our understanding, not knowing if I would ever need the information. It had proved much more useful than I had ever anticipated.

"Does he treat you right?" Richard asked, raising one eyebrow slightly. I knew he was wondering about our injuries and whether Mr. Wooster had played any part in inflicting mine. Given the temperament of many 'gentlemen,' it was not an entirely unreasonable concern.

"I realize that you have already dismissed him as an idle society man, but he may very well have saved my life last night," I answered. "His eldest aunt, a very wealthy, powerful, and unpleasant woman, finally discovered the truth after suspecting us for several years. She wished to have him marry immediately to avoid a scandal, but my own intended fate was to be quietly placed in an insane asylum, where I would most certainly have vanished without our family ever knowing what had happened to me."

"Oh, Lord," Richard whispered, shuddering slightly.

I looked Richard in the eye. "He has the kindest heart I've ever known," I said. "Bertie could very easily have fled, saving himself, and left me to his family's vengeance. He did not. He came to free me, Richard, at a significant risk to his own life and limb. There was no reason for him to do so beyond his personal regard for me. In fact, before they came for us, I had specifically instructed him to run, to save himself and not consider what might happen to me."

Richard made a slight sound of amusement. "Well then, perhaps he's actually worthy of you." He smiled.

I allowed myself to relax at last. "I sometimes wonder if I am worthy of him," I admitted.

"I'll wish you luck, and a long life to find out," he said.

"Thank you." Our conversation changed course after that, and we traded news of family and friends for about fifteen minutes before Richard informed me that he had to show me to my cabin and return to work; he had taken too much time away already. While moving about the ship would be painful and somewhat difficult for me, it would be manageable if I took a few basic precautions, and it would become easier as my knee healed, so long as I refrained from using it unless necessary. When he at last left me at the door to the cabin, he embraced me briefly.

"Sleep well, Reg. Best if you lads stay aboard until we weigh anchor; it'll be easier on you and I won't have to worry about you going missing while you're ashore."

"Of course. Goodnight, Richard, and thank you again. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude for your aid."

"Blood's a tight bond, cousin."

"Indeed." He nodded and turned away, leaving me to my cabin and Mr. Wooster. The space was quite small, but I had known it would be. Mr. Wooster was already asleep in the top bunk, but he roused slightly when I entered.

"Reggie," he said. His hand emerged from beneath his blankets and he reached out to me. I took it and kissed his scraped and battered fingers.

"Go back to sleep, Bertie. We shall be safe here. We can talk in the morning."

"Lonely up here," he murmured.

"I know. I regret that this is the case. There is nothing to be done for it." I leaned in against the top bunk and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Goodnight, Bertie."

He turned his face to me and returned my kiss, still half asleep. "Should have got first class. Bigger beds."

"As you say." I smiled. His eyes closed and he drifted off again.

***

The next couple of days passed too bally slowly for Bertram's taste. Jeeves had trouble hobbling about on his cane but, thankfully, the officer's mess and the place one goes to empty one's bilges and clean off the carcass were both on the same deck as our little hideout. One kind chappy from the engine room lent me a few of his ripping adventure novels to read, and Jeeves ended up playing chess with some of the officers -- one at a time, of course, though a chap of Jeeves's talents could probably have taken on several of them at once -- when they were off duty.

I hated having to sleep apart from Jeeves, even though we were only separated by a few feet. That it was vertical rather than horizontal was the problem, of course. It was dashed difficult to reach out at night and touch him when he wasn't beside me. The only time we'd spent sleeping apart since we'd started sleeping together was when I was off visiting outside of our flat, and I'd got quite used to having a warm Jeeves to curl up with as I edged into the dark and dreamless. He didn't say much about it, but I could see that it bothered him rather a bit as well. And we'd have about three weeks of this rummy sitch before we got to Buenos Aires. I must say, it was not this Wooster's idea of a spiffing time.

When we finally set sail -- though there were no sails on the old _Pelham Grenville_ , of course; they'd stopped using them years ago -- it was a corker of a relief. It meant we were safe at last, that Aunt Agatha's constant beazel-flinging was done for good, that I'd never have to answer the Call of the Aunt again. I'd never have to pinch something for a friend or end up accidentally engaged when I tried to smooth the way for aching hearts yearning to be united or be set up to look like a loony. My relief was as the waters of the Nile, or some other extremely large and famous river.

Jeeves and I stood on the fantail smoking our gaspers, leaning on the railing and looking back at the lights of the metrop receding into the night. I couldn't look away. Something in my chest tightened and twisted, and I realized with a sense of utter despair I would never see my London, my home, again. It wasn't until Jeeves's strong arm wrapped around me that I realized the Wooster e.s were leaking rather disgracefully. When the lights finally faded in the distance, blending indistinguishably from the lesser lights of the English coast, I turned to Jeeves and buried my face in his shoulder, holding him close. I'm not ashamed to admit that I wept like a frightened child at that point. I don't think I'd cried that hard since my parents died, but Jeeves just stood with me and held me, steady and silent as the stars above us.

I had given up everything for my man. While it's true that I still had my money -- and a dashed good thing that was, or we'd both be in a sorry state -- I'd abandoned my flat, given the two-seater to Mabel, and left behind every stitch of clothing, every book I owned, every bit of art that I'd bought, every family photograph, every letter I'd ever got from a friend. What little reputation I had would be utterly destroyed, of course -- not that I'd be around to see the effects of that particular deba.. debi... that particular hideous disaster. I'd left behind my piano, and my club and the gifts that Jeeves and I had given one another in the last few years for birthdays and Christmases. My family was beyond my reach and I wasn't sure how I felt about that. It was a wrenching pain inside me, like having my liver extracted with a very dull teaspoon while being forced to sit through a parade of girl's school terrors performing at a recital. Yet I would sacrifice everything again if I had to, because he was worth that much to me. He was worth more than that to me, because I knew that I'd have gladly abandoned the money if I'd had to as well; I'd have walked away in just my skin and the sunshine, by Jove, as long as Jeeves was safe and we were together.

"I'm in desperate need of a b. and s., old fruit," I murmured into his ear. My voice sounded like it had been stomped upon several times by a ravening herd of alligators.

"I believe the officer's mess might be able to provide the necessary beverage for you, Bertie," he said gently, and he kissed my cheek and then my temple.

I gave a nod. "I may need to get well under the surface tonight, you realize."

"I understand."

I looked up at him. "I still have you, Reggie."

His solemn expression softened and he smiled. "And I, you."

***

I had been waiting for the harsher realities of our situation to meet with Mr. Wooster's consciousness from the moment we had so precipitously exited the Blue Room's window. That it had happened as we watched the lights of London shrink behind us like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought, had not been entirely unexpected. I knew that he had been thinking of his losses, and he wept for quite some time before he finally calmed again. I felt the sting of loss just as he did, and worried for our future; we would be relocating to a country where he did not speak the language. I had only a modest amount of Spanish myself, and that was not of the Argentine dialect, which was heavily inflected with Italian. Several of the crew of my cousin's ship were Argentines themselves, and I would make use of our time at sea to learn from them as much as I could. I would encourage Mr. Wooster to take up this pastime as well, in the hope of making his transition somewhat easier.

Buenos Aires, our ultimate destination, was a large and vibrant city and I had heard reports of the great opera house, the _Teatro Colón_ , that had compared it to the largest and finest of Europe. This, at least, I was looking forward to experiencing for myself. That Argentina was also the home of the _tango criollo_ would likely please Mr. Wooster, who loved to dance. The _tango_ had become quite popular in Paris and had been spreading into high society from there in recent years. There would be pleasures for both of us that might, in some small measure, make up for all we had lost in our flight. I would seek advice from Richard about life in the city during the voyage. He had a wife and two children there, and resided in Buenos Aires when he was not at sea.

We made our way slowly to the officer's mess, where I was able to find both brandy and soda water for Mr. Wooster. One of the duty officers was there dealing with a bit of paperwork, but he did not interrupt his task beyond greeting us casually. Mr. Wooster had several drinks before we returned to our own quarters. He had insisted that I have one with him, and I had, but I needed to maintain enough equilibrium to manage on a cane with an injured knee and so did not indulge in a second. The alcohol, along with his already low mood, had turned him somewhat maudlin as I helped him prepare for bed.

He dropped himself onto my bunk in a sulk as I undressed. "Do you require assistance getting into your bunk, Bertie?" I asked.

"No. I want to sleep with you." He folded his arms over his chest and turned a petulant look upon me.

I sighed. "There is insufficient room for such a thing."

"Don't care," he grumbled. "It's no bally wonder they call these things racks. Heretics were probably stretched upon them not all that long ago. There's a certain air of agony and despair about them. It's like that Pro-somebody's bed."

"Procrustes, sir," I said.

He nodded. "That's the chappy. And you called me sir again. Stop that."

"It is sometimes still difficult," I admitted, sitting next to him. He leaned against me and I lay my arm over his shoulders. "I should not fall out of the habit, however."

"No, no, no." He shook his head quite insistently. "We're not going to be doing that again. We've tried this master and man thingummy and you see where it's landed us. No. From now on, we're just two chaps sharing a flat, what?"

I let my cheek rest against his temple. "Had we not continued to act our parts, this day would have arrived with far more alacrity. You know as well as I that we had to act as though nothing had changed. We shall, no doubt, be required to resume these roles when we acquire a flat at the end of this voyage, Bertie."

"I won't." He twisted and stretched himself out so that he lay in my lap. "You said these Buenos whatsit types, they don't care anyway. Why should we have to hide, hmm?"

I let my head fall back against the bulkhead and rested one hand on his chest, my fingers caressing him through his undervest. "Sadly, it is not as simple as that."

"Tcha."

"While the legal situation is certainly far better than that which currently exists in Britain, there are still social factors to consider. Legality does not necessarily equate to tolerance, Bertie. We shall still have to exercise discretion."

He closed his eyes and covered them with one hand. "Noooo," he moaned. "I'm dashed sick of discreet, Reg. I'm sick of yes, sir and indeed, sir and very good, sir. If we're going to be in a place where it's legal then I shall bally well treat it like it's legal."

"There is still the possibility of violence," I said. "I will not place you in unnecessary danger."

"Blast all of it!" he shouted, beating the bunk with his fist and looking up at me. "It stupid and vile and unfair and horrid, all of it! Why can't we just have a quiet bally life, like everyone else? Why does everyone think they have a right to tell me who I can and can't love?"

I took him in my arms and he sniffled against my chest. "It is simply the way things are," I said. "We cannot change it, so we must live with it as best we can."

"We ought to change it," he muttered.

I smiled. "You're beginning to sound like one of those communist revolutionaries that Mr. Little took up with briefly," I said.

"Well, it's a dashed lot easier when one has no home to worry about, isn't it? Shaking up the social order. Revolting. All that overthrowing and whatnot."

"I could not say."

He poked my side with one finger. "You could, but you won't, you blighter. I just want to sleep with you tonight, Reggie. I know it's like siamese twins in a coffin for a single, but we could at least try, what?" He looked up at me, slightly blurry but hopeful.

In truth, I wanted the same thing. It would most likely be very uncomfortable, but I thought that if I could rest my knee on his leg, it might work, at least briefly. "We can but try," I said, with a sigh.

"Jolly good," he said, his aspect lightening considerably. It was truly so very easy to please him, and I loved doing so.

"If you would rise for a few moments so that I might arrange things to better accommodate us," I said. He nodded and rose, taking his pillow from his own bunk.

"Right ho."

I rose for a moment to turn off the light, then lay on my side and settled with my back pressed hard to the cold metal bulkhead, attempting to take up as little space as possible. There wasn't much room at all, but Mr. Wooster is a slender man, and both of us were willing to at least try to make this work. Once in a position I thought might serve, I raised the sheet and blankets for him. He slipped in before me, lying with his back to me, and brought himself as close as he could. The fit was extremely tight and slightly awkward, but he settled under my arm and leg with a soft sigh.

After a moment of wriggling, he finally stilled against me. "This is so much better than being alone, old fruit," he said softly, covering my arm with his. "Thank you."

With my knee at a more or less comfortable angle, I realized we could do this for at least a few hours, though if either of us became restless during the night it would become quite impossible to maintain our close embrace. The sensation of his warm, thin body pressed along the length of my own was a comfort and I placed a gentle kiss at the nape of his neck. "It is," I admitted. "Do you think you will be able to sleep?" I was uncertain whether I would be able to accomplish the task, but I would be content to hold him, regardless.

"Maybe. I'll try, at least, if you will." He squeezed my hand.

"Goodnight, Bertie," I whispered.

"Goodnight, Reg."

***

I don't know if you've ever undertaken to spend three-ish weeks in an unpleasantly scented sardine tin, but I can tell you, it's dashed boring. The only thing that livened it up at all was the storm, and the only thing that did was inject a jolly little spot of nausea into the boredom. I'd never felt quite so sloshed around at sea before in my entire bally life -- passenger liners were larger than packet ships, or at least this particular packet, and apparently that made a good bit of difference in how badly they bobbed on the waves. I was certain we were about to capsize, but everyone assured me it wasn't bad at all. Now my stomach, _that_ capsized severely on several occasions over the two days that Neptune spent expressing his displeasure with one Bertram Wooster. By the time we were done, I wasn't sure I ever wanted to even gaze upon the calm surface of a bathtub again lest nameless horrors be evoked, complete with tentacles and a slight odor of rot.

Boring, while boring, was at least less fraught and far less covered with expelled stomach contents.

Jeeves and I spent most of the first several days in our cabin, despite its being more suited to a very small family of extraordinarily tiny mice than a pair of adult men. Poor Jeeves was still resting his knee until he could hobble about without endangering himself. We talked, though rather less than I'd have thought, and that mostly about what we'd do to find our way when we got to Buenos whatsit. He was trying to keep up the old stuffed frog mask, but it was crumbling about the edges and I could see he was unhappy. Well, he'd lost everything just as I had, after all, so one might expect such a reaction, even from a paragon. I did my best to offer what comfort and sunny disposish I was able. I've never been terribly good at that comforty sort of thing, but he seemed to appreciate the effort.

After that, both of us got out a little more. He spent time with his cousin, of course, but he was also quite interested in talking to some of the crew. Several of them were from this Argentina place that we were going, and he said it would behoove us to learn some of the language. I'd always thought English was perfectly adequate, even though I had dribs and drabs of French and whatnot. Admittedly, that was mostly the names of the things that Anatole cooked. Jeeves said I really should at least be able to offer a cheery what ho and toodle-pip to the people we'd be living amongst, though of course not in those exact words; Jeeves _never_ toodle-pips. I suppose he was right about that. The whole learning another language wheeze was harder than I'd expected, though, and I ended up with headaches because of it sometimes.

The crew was from all over the bally planet, it seemed. The chaps who cooked for us were both Punjabi, though that suited me quite well. I was as fond of curry as any other Englishman. Most of the officers were British, of course, old P. G. being a British ship and all. There were the aforementioned Argentine blokes, and rather a lot of Africans and Spaniards and Irishmen and Italians and Portuguese. There were more Chinese chaps than I would have thought, as well, and one Indian from North Dakota, who just said that he'd got tired of looking at the badlands and wanted to see some water for once. He didn't look at all like the Indians in the motion pictures and seemed a bit pipped when I asked him about it.

They all seemed quite fond of playing cards, and I found that the acey-deucy thing Richard had mentioned was actually backgammon. I tended more to the musical end of things than cards and such, unless it involved tossing them into a topper, so I spent many of my evenings listening to some of the chaps playing and singing. There was a concertina and a couple of Spanish guitars, and a rather squeaky fiddle that would get passed around to anyone who knew how to use them. Sadly, there was no piano aboard. They were quite entertained when I sang '47 Ginger Headed Sailors' for them, and that seemed to make it easier to talk to them as well, as they'd been a bit unfriendly at first. Several of the Argentine chappies were quite topping dancers with that tango thingummy that was so popular now. One of them taught me a few quite exciting steps and he said that there were clubs where a bird could go to learn all about it; apparently they only admitted men, which meant that chaps usually danced with each other there. I thought that was an absolutely corking idea and thought I'd have Jeeves find us one when we had found a place to live and whatnot. The idea of being able to go out and dance with him set the Wooster heart to leaping like those lords in that Christmas song. Bertram was beginning to warm to this whole living in Argentina thingummy, I must say.

Jeeves seemed to get along with everyone well enough, though most of them thought he was a bit cold and distant, somewhat like a polar bear on the far horizon. Jeeves said they knew he was the First Mate's cousin and so they were somewhat concerned about the idea that something untoward might get back to Richard through him if they relaxed too much around him. He seemed to take it in stride, but of course he always does. There is nothing that Jeeves's stride does not encompass, whether it be enraged aunts, accidental fiancées, angry attack swans, or American business magnates in search of a quiet spot to make some kind of a deal. It was one of his finer qualities, and why I relied upon him so dashed much; my stride might hop over the occasional puddle or manage not to trip over a terrier, but it's nothing on the Jeevesian stride. Then again, he did tend to dash himself up on the shoals of ties with horseshoes on them or mustaches from time to time, expressing a heartrending distress in his sartorial agony. Even Jeeves isn't perfect, particularly when it comes to a spiffingly cheerful tie or a brass-buttoned mess jacket.

***

I spent a great deal of time during the voyage speaking with the Argentine crewmen, as much because there was little to do aboard the _Pelham Grenville_ as because I needed to learn the language. I was very pleased that Mr. Wooster was making an effort, though he found it something of a challenge and often found himself in some distress. He was making rather better progress than he realized and I encouraged him by practicing with him while we were alone or in the company of the Argentine sailors. He seemed amenable, so long as I did not insist on the exclusive use of Rioplatense and allowed him to ask for clarifications in English.

"It's just exhausting, old fruit, this whole new language thingummy," he said one evening after we'd retired for the night. We were curled together on my bunk with his head laid in my lap, as we often did before separating to sleep alone.

I nodded, running my fingers through his hair. "I know, but it is necessary. You'll be far safer and will enjoy life there much more if you understand what is happening around you, Bertie."

"If you were with me, I wouldn't have to worry about it." He looked up at me, his eyes searching for reassurance.

"And that will often be the case, but I will not be with you all the time. There are things I must do that you will have no interest in, and things that you will wish to do alone as well. In this, our lives will be much as they always were."

"At least we'll be able to dance with each other," he said, smiling slightly. "I always wished we could, you know. We should do that for my birthday, even though it'll be late-ish." He reached up and slipped his hand behind my neck, tugging me down as he leaned up to meet me. " _Bésame_ ," he murmured. It had been one of the earliest words he'd learned and he had practiced it quite religiously. I kissed him, as requested.

His kiss was sweet and intoxicating; his kisses often were. He sat slowly, wrapping his arms about me as our tongues brushed softly together. I held him close and savored the warmth of his body against my own. Our breath and our pulses quickened with the press of his mouth upon mine. Due to the awkwardness of the space, which had been considerably complicated by the pain in my slowly healing knee, we had not made love since the morning of the day we had boarded the ship, and my desire for him was intense and consuming. It had been nearly three weeks. Although we had occasionally shared my tiny bunk, that had been inspired by a simple need to touch one another and we had done nothing beyond kissing and holding each other.

Our hands moved, slow and tender, on one another's bodies. It was warm in our cabin and we wore only our undershorts, having already undressed for bed. His skin was smooth and pliant under my fingers as I caressed his side. He moaned quietly into my mouth and I inhaled the sound, pressing my kiss deeper. His moan became a soft gasp as my hand slipped down to caress the heat of his erect phallus through the cloth, the sharp passage of his breath cool upon my lips, and his hand tightened in my hair.

"I want you," I whispered, kissing him again, this time with more urgency. He pushed me back, pinning me to the bulkhead, returning my kiss with a fierce passion that burned through me and left me gasping.

"Have me," he said, his voice low and dark. "Anything you want, Reg, anything. You can have me swinging like a bally monkey from the top bunk if you like."

My heart surged with my desire. "I want to feel you inside me." It had been far too long and I needed the pure intensity of it, the wiry strength of his body moving within mine.

He shifted his weight and knelt, rising over me; he touched my knee carefully. "Will you be all right?" There was a hint of worry in his eyes beneath the need I could see there.

"Yes," I said, moving so that I lay beneath him. I pulled him down upon me and he groaned aloud, grinding his hips into me as he lay between my thighs.

"Do we have--"

"In the desk drawer."

He reached out across the narrow space between the bunk and the desk and pulled the drawer open, feeling around until he found the small jar of petroleum jelly I had placed there some days ago. "You planned this, didn't you?" He grinned. The sight of his smile stirred me even further. He had been so subdued of late, and his smiles were more rare than they had been.

"I surmised that the opportunity might eventually arise." I tugged his pants off and dropped them on the deck.

"Something's definitely arising," he said as I removed my own. "A couple of somethings, I think." He reached between us and took me in his hand, squeezing my prick until I gasped and pushed up into his grip. "Oh, yes," he whispered. "God, I've missed this."

I twined my fingers in his hair and brought our mouths together for another passionate kiss. There were no words after that, beyond "yes" and "please" and "more." The slide of his skin on mine was sensual and necessary and we moved together with the pent up force of our need. His fingers opened me, gentle and forceful in the same movements, and my back arched as my body sought more of the friction and pleasure he gave.

He so rarely took me like this; most often, as in the other areas of our lives, I was the one who guided and controlled. I was the one who slipped inside him and brought him to his peak and, for the most part, he preferred it that way. It was blissful to allow him full reign of my body and I groaned, panting for breath, as he slowly pushed his hard length into me. "Deeper," I gasped, my body begging for more of him with the clutch of fingers, the wrap of arms and legs about his slender form. He gave one hard, sharp thrust, and I cried out as he filled me utterly.

He began to move then, his hips striking a fast, rough rhythm that would drive me quickly to my end. I rocked my body against his in a strong counter-rhythm that left me helpless beneath him in a haze of pleasure. My injured knee struck the bulkhead and I flinched, but Mr. Wooster slipped an arm about my leg and held it to his body as he thrust into me, safe and away from the hard surface. His other hand played over my body, caressing and squeezing, pinching a nipple or scratching my side to intensify the sensations of our lovemaking.

As my pleasure rose, I fought to keep my cries of passion from becoming shouts as I lost myself to the ecstasy of our joining. He covered my mouth without losing his rhythm and I shouted against his palm, reveling in the ability to finally let go of all my control, to shout my release as it ran like a flood through my nerves; it was this that took me over the edge, and my body shook and writhed as I came, holding him with desperate strength. Once my shouts had stilled to breathless gasps, he moved his hand, holding me closely as I trembled, slowing and deepening his thrusts to a gentle intensity more suited to his own pleasure. He panted against my ear, hot breath on my cheek as he continued to ravish me, and whispered, "Oh yes, Reg, yes, you're so... oh God..."

I slipped my hands down his sweat-slicked body, taking his buttocks in my hands and urging him deeper, wanting him to take his pleasure in me. He rocked against me, moving inside me, and I lost all sense of time as I reveled in his touch. When his breath hitched and his legs began to tremble, I knew he was very close. I tightened my hands on him, pulling him in hard, and he buried his face against my neck with a sharp cry as he finished. His muscles shook with the aftershocks of his release until he went limp against me. We lay, our bodies tangled together in a sweaty knot, as we regained our breath.

Slowly, we found our voices again, neither of us wishing to move despite the fact that our situation was not particularly comfortable now that we had passed the heat of the moment. My knee ached dully where it was pressed to the bulkhead, but I did not really care.

"I keep forgetting how absolutely corking that feels," Mr. Wooster murmured. "I should do it more often, what?"

I chuckled, smiling. "Yes, you should."

"I should let you move, old fruit." He shifted his weight slightly so that my knee was no longer held against the cold steel beside us. "Are you all right? I didn't hurt you, did I?" He ran a gentle hand over my knee.

I took his hand in mine and kissed it. "There is some minor discomfort. I do not believe it will last long. My knee has been healing well and there's no need for you to worry." We moved together until we were both situated more comfortably with his body draped over my own and I held him loosely in my arms, slowly rubbing his back.

"I'm so glad we did this," he said quietly, his fingers tracing abstract arcs on my biceps.

"It had been too long," I agreed.

He shook his head. "Well, yes, that, but I meant leaving, you know. Upping sticks. Scarpering off like a whatsit in the night."

I tilted his face to me and kissed him gently. "I thought you missed England."

"I do." He shrugged. "I rather doubt England misses me, though. I've been thinking it over, Reggie, rolling it about in the old onion, and this Wooster has come to the conclusion that 'tis a far, far better thingummy and all that, not having to worry about anyone trying to snatch you away from me anymore." His eyes stayed locked with mine. "I think it's finally thumped me over the bean, just how afraid I'd been all the time. Afraid of my family. Afraid of having to marry against my will. Afraid of being found out. Afraid of going to prison. Afraid of losing you. And I don't have to be anymore. It's really quite a topping feeling, suddenly not having all that on the young master's shoulders." He nibbled at my neck. "I'd rather have you than England anyway, you know."

I gazed at him for a moment, struck by his statement. "Thank you," I whispered. In the relative peace of the ship, I had forgotten how much effort he had constantly devoted to avoiding being caught up in the schemes of his family and friends, how often he had endured their machinations -- and my own -- to suit their ends without concern for his safety or his preferences, and how much time he spent near panic when these things disrupted his life. He had, so frequently, simply been trying to survive by hiding the extent of his intelligence or saying 'yes' when he felt he had no viable choices. Our flight had freed him from all of that. Other problems would undoubtedly arise from time to time, but the sea change this would bring to his life was staggering in its immensity. He was, for the first time in his life, genuinely free. "I am entirely content to spend my life with you, no matter our circumstances."

"You'd not dash off if the bank account suddenly went dry one day?" The question was not asked entirely in jest, and I felt a momentary sting at the thought that he believed there was even the slightest chance that I would leave him. Of course, I had at one point, so his fear was more justified than I would ever care to admit; this thought shamed me and I wished to reassure him.

"Were you penniless, Bertie, and living in a grass hut, I would happily remain by your side." I would, of course, rectify the situation at my earliest possible opportunity, but I would _never_ desert him. His smile lit the room. "I love you," I told him. It was a thing we rarely said to one another; everything we did expressed that truth. In kissing me, he did not have to repeat my words. I felt it in every stirring of his breath.

***

Jeeves and I had talked too bally many times about what we were going to do when we arrived in Buenos Aires. His cousin Richard had offered to let us stay with him and his family until we could get a flat of our own; he said it would likely only take us a few days, provided I was able to get to my money in the Swiss account as we'd hoped. If the whole thing had gone off as Jeeves planned, we'd have more than enough of the folding stuff. If not, we had what we'd brought with us and things would take rather longer and be a bit more of an uphill slog, probably whilst attempting to drag a stubborn llama with heels dug into the rocks along with us.

I wasn't sure how his wife, Soledad, would take to the blasted thing, either. After all, even though the tender pash that Jeeves and I shared was legal there, it wasn't like everyone was going to dash up and embrace this whole sodomy wheeze with confetti and ticker tape and all that rot. There was also the small matter of the poor gal not even knowing we were coming. It was rather more difficult to send a telegram from one of these packet ships than it was from a passenger liner, after all.

After so long at sea, the thin line of land on the horizon before us was a sight as welcome as one of Anatole's masterpieces to a starving chap dragging himself to table after several weeks on nothing but a dry crust of something crusty. Probably one of those French bread thingummies you could use as a cricket bat. The ship was busy as an anthill that had been told to expect a particularly harsh inspection by its nastiest aunt; everyone was dashing to and fro battening this and ship-shaping that to prepare for docking. We'd arrive early in the afternoon, though the city itself was rather a considerable distance up a very large river. Across the river was another entire country. One of those -guay places I think, Para- or Uru- or something. I leaned on the railing at the bow of the ship with Jeeves by my side. We were as much out of the way of the crew as we could manage, lest we be flattened by an unfortunately placed coil of rope or whatnot.

The water changed color as we drew closer to land and I imagined I could see where the flow of the river met and mingled with the ocean. I wondered if I'd manage to mingle with Argentina as well as all that. I felt rather more like flotsam and less like the mingling wet stuff. I think Jeeves noticed I was feeling a bit out of sorts, as he slipped an arm about the slender Wooster shoulders. I leaned into him and wrapped an arm about his waist. "What are you thinking about, Bertie?" he asked.

"How I feel rather like flotsam," I said. "Unwanted and tossed overboard and not likely to mingle very well with the water."

"I believe the term you're looking for is jetsam," he noted. "Flotsam is debris from a wreck."

"Well, that too, I suppose."

He pressed his cheek to mine as he wrapped me in his arms. "You are not unwanted."

"I am rather a wreck."

"No," he said, quiet in the wind. "You have faced this with great courage and tenacity."

"I didn't have very much choice, old thing."

He regarded me with one eyebrow raised a molecule or two. "You chose to risk your safety, and perhaps even your life, to come to free me when you could have vanished into the night before anyone knew you were gone."

I frowned. "That wasn't a choice, Reggie, that was a necessity. It would have been easier to leave my liver lying on the floor. Perhaps accompanied by a kidney or a pancreas."

"You asked me a few days ago if I would stay with you if your money were gone." I nodded, worrying a bit. I had stayed with my family out of obligation and fear; I certainly didn't want Jeeves feeling like he was obligated to stay with me just because I'd done the only thing I bally well could and dashed in after him. He cupped my chin in one hand and looked into my eyes. "I am not staying with you because I expect you to have money. I am not staying with you out of obligation or gratitude. I am not like your friends, who so often only wanted something from you, nor like your family, who expected your obedience bound by ties of blood. I am with you because you are as necessary to me as breath, Bertram. I am and shall remain with you for the same reason that you came for me that night; because I can do nothing else and still remain myself."

Well, that was a corker if I'd ever heard one and I think I got something in my eye, because I needed to dash some water from it for a mo. Jeeves tilted his head and commenced an exploration of my lips with his own. I heartily approved and tossed myself into the project with all due enthusiasm. I was, perhaps, a touch breathless by the time the lips had been properly introduced, but we were out in the sunlight in front of anyone who wandered by so we weren't actually occupied with it for terribly long. One doesn't, after all, do such things in public if one can help it.

When we finally docked, I thought we would hasten ashore and see Richard into the arms of his wife, as one might when one is a passenger on a liner and has been parted from one's pining heart and other half. Unfortunately for my patience, of which little remained, there were several hours of work for the chap to do before he could leave. His dearly beloved would not be arriving until nearly dusk to fetch him -- and us -- home. To stay out of the way of flying cargo and potential vampire bats -- which I was told were native to the region -- Jeeves and I retreated to the safety of our cabin for the nonce.

***

When we finally went ashore, my cousin was met by his wife, Soledad, and his two young daughters, Florinda and Isabel. He introduced us to them and she greeted me as Richard's cousin. We had previously decided to introduce Mr. Wooster as a 'close friend' of mine, avoiding the awkwardness of revealing our relationship before her attitude toward this circumstance could be ascertained. Soledad was a small, dark-haired, brown eyed woman of Spanish and Italian extraction, slender and quite beautiful. Their daughters took after her in coloring, though their height reflected their father's heritage. They were quite young; Florinda was ten and Isabel eight, but they were already showing the promise of considerable stature in adulthood.

Richard and his family lived in a waterfront neighborhood not terribly far from the docks. It was a somewhat more working class neighborhood than I would have expected for a senior ship's officer, but Richard said that they had been living there for many years and he had no particular desire to move to a more expensive and luxurious area. He loved the sea and did not wish to be far from it. Their flat was on the uppermost storey of its building, with a view of the water, and it was large and comfortable enough for the family; they had but one guest room, which solved the potential problem of Mr. Wooster and I being forced to sleep apart to preserve an illusion. Soledad apologized for the perceived inadequacy, but I assured her that we would not be offended by the necessity of sharing a bed for a few nights. We would wait until we had acquired our own domicile before we decided whether or not she should be informed about the nature of my relationship with Mr. Wooster.

Our first night in Buenos Aires was a quiet one. We were both eager to share a more suitably sized bed once again, and Mr. Wooster expressed a great deal of relief at said bed's stability after our weeks at sea. His birthday would be the next day, though he had not mentioned it to anyone. We would visit a financial institution in the morning to see if our funds had been transferred to the Swiss account as we had instructed. The result of this inquiry would determine our next actions, though I was quite intent that his birthday would be a happy and memorable one, regardless of our financial situation. I had spoken quietly to Richard about this without Mr. Wooster's knowledge, and he had promised to speak with Soledad so that a festive dinner could be planned.

"It's a much larger city than I expected," Mr. Wooster noted once we were abed.

"It is one of the largest on the continent," I noted.

He nodded. "Still, one thinks of South America and pictures jungles and poisoned darts and piranhas, what? Do you think there are piranhas in that river, Reggie?"

"It is unlikely, at least in this part of the river. I am certain that both of us will find many things of interest in Buenos Aires, however. There will be a great deal to learn," I said.

"I wonder if the Drones have a recipro-something agreement with one of the clubs here," he murmured.

"I believe the Pichiciago Club has that honor."

He rolled onto his side and curled his body around me. "What's a Pichi-whatsit?"

"It is the smallest of the armadillos," I said. "In English they are called the Pink Fairy Armadillo. They are burrowing creatures found in arid grasslands and--"

"Yes, rather. I think that's enough about pink burrowing creatures, Reg." His head rested upon my shoulder. "I wonder if I'm still a member of the Drones."

I pondered this for a moment. "We could wire them and find out. It is possible that your aunt's influence does not extend to the membership committee."

"Hmm. Yes, that does sound like a topping idea, provided the chaps haven't decided that they don't want a gent of my sort among their number. Not that a couple of them aren't -- of my sort, I mean. One doesn't put it to the membership committee, though. That would be right out."

"Given that Lady Worplesdon wished to avoid scandal, the news may not have come to the attention of the Drones. They may very well not be aware of what happened."

"One can hope," he said, sounding optimistic. "Regardless, wherever the English gentleman roams, there dwells the gentleman's club, and wherever there is a gentleman's club, this Wooster shall be found." He paused, then asked, "Do you think they'll speak English at the club?"

"I am given to understand that there is a large community of expatriate Englishmen here, so it would stand to reason that a gentleman's club with a reciprocal agreement with the Drones would have an English-speaking membership, at least in part." I threaded my fingers into his hair. "And if they do not, it would be a very good place for you to practice your Rioplatense."

"I thought I'd do that at the tango club," he said, a hint of uneasiness in his voice. "One of the chaps on the ship gave me a letter of introduction to his club; I think it was called an _academia_ or something of the sort, not a club, though it's the same idea. But I was hoping there would be a place where I wouldn't have to worry about whether I could speak English or not, and a gentleman's club seemed my most likely refuge."

"I am certain you will find a large number of new friends here, Bertie, and that many of them will be English. You have always made friends easily because of your cheerful disposition and I do not anticipate this changing. It is important, however, to understand that our language is not this country's native tongue. We will have to live our lives differently in many ways; fortunately, one of those differences will be that we no longer have to fear imprisonment because of our affections."

He nodded slowly, pulling me closer. When he spoke, his voice was soft and subdued. "I know. I mean to say, it's all just a bit much, really. I suppose I never quite believed we'd have to leave England until it actually happened. I'm still not entirely convinced I won't wake up in our bed at Berkeley Mansions tomorrow to find that this has been a lengthy and particularly vivid nightmare, like unto waking up and finding I'd been married to Madeline Bassett for the past five years." He shivered slightly and took my hand in his. "I feel... a bit lost, I think."

"We will find our way," I assured him. "We are safe, and we are together. That is what is important." I offered him a gentle kiss and he relaxed into my arms at last.

***

Finding that I still had access to the Wooster funds left me feeling considerably chuffed. We could find ourselves a suitable flat to live in. We could buy sufficient coverings for the corpus, though I rather suspected that Jeeves would insist they be entirely too sedate in form for Bertram's taste. There would be food and wine in abundance, and the makings for a brandy and s. would be quite plentiful in short order. I will admit I'd spent a good bit of the voyage with a thought in the back of the mind that I might be poor as a church mouse when I arrived.

Jeeves lobbed a telegram in the direction of Biffy and Mabel once we'd found the money was available, saying that all was well with us and we'd washed ashore safely. He told her we were staying with their cousin, and that he'd wire her again once we had a permanent domicile. He said she'd probably wait a couple of days to reply, knowing that we'd find ourselves a place in short order and that it would be better to get in touch with us there.

The afternoon was spent examining potential flats, though I found myself a bit lost in the flurry of conversation when it came to details of amenities and whatnot in the local lingo. Jeeves had got quite good at it -- the local lingo, I mean -- and was able to go along at full tilt, while I was left straggling somewhat, as might a slightly nobbled horse at the Ascot, and hoping that what bits I caught were actually what they intended. At one point, I was fairly certain a goat was mentioned, but I couldn't imagine why.

By the time we ankled back to Richard's place, we'd got ourselves a nice flat in a place called Recoleta, which seemed to be the place to be for the oofy set. It was just bursting with museums and parks and libraries and whatnot; this appealed to Jeeves a great deal, though I was more interested in the fact that this Pichiciago Club was a shortish walk from the new Wooster abode. It would be two days before we could move in to the place, though, so we'd be staying with Richard and his family until then. I dropped by the club and inquired about their agreement with the Drones, and was welcomed with open arms, much as I had been at the Pumpkin Club in New York. Bertram was a much happier chap when he walked back out the door and into the bosom of restless humanity outside.

When we got back to Richard's domicile, I got a bit of further shock to the system. Apparently the lot of them had got wind of the arrival of Bertram's third decade and Soledad had put together a very festive meal, involving fatted calves and a number of other probable _accoutrements_ of a prodigal whatsit making a comeback. There were even presents, which I had not in the least been expecting; a simple 'happy birthday, old top' would have more than done. There were some spiffing mystery novels in English, which must have been rather a trick to procure, and a sizeable dictionary that would help me along with the stuff they spoke around here. There were some writing supplies and a typewriter; I assumed either Jeeves had arranged that, or he'd told them that I liked to write. A bit of leakage occurred about the ocular region at this turn of events.

Presents celebrating the arrival of this Wooster into the world were not at all common, you see. Being a gent of leisure, everyone figured that I didn't really need gifts. I had everything one could generally wish for, after all. The family had never seen fit to celebrate the blessed event since I'd left short pants behind, and only Jeeves had really been concerned about the whole idea at all. He'd started up with them when we'd embarked upon our personal understanding with one another, though I'd always been the sort to pop a bit of the extra into his pay envelope on days of that sort after I'd hired him on. It had been the act of a pleased and content employer at that point, though extra pay had become actual gifts when he'd become more than my valet, of course.

It wasn't until after we'd got ourselves off to bed for the night that Jeeves gave me his present. I could have sworn we were together the entire time we were out and about the city that day, but it seemed that he'd made a rather underhanded arrangement with Richard to get something for me while we were occupied so that I'd not suspect a thing.

"I wish that I could give you everything that this gift implies," he said as he pulled a small box from his pocket. "I hope that it pleases you, Bertie." Inside the box was a ring. It was made of heavy gold, adorned with a stark black onyx square, and a diamond inset at the center of said s. b. o. square. I looked up at him, slightly lightheaded.

"I... do you really mean this, Reggie?" I'm sure I must have been gaping like a poleaxed haddock. He nodded, turning a look upon me that was both uneasy and a bit hopeful, which meant one eyebrow was a bit out of alignment and there was a slight hint of tension about the eyes. I slipped the ring on my finger. It fit perfectly, of course. I tossed the corpus into Jeeves's arms; I fit perfectly too. "Why this?" I asked, all breathless and dizzy. "Why now?"

He held me close and he sounded a bit breathless himself. "It seemed the ideal time," he murmured, his breath tickling my ear and sending a delicious shiver down my spine. "We have left behind everything we once knew and we must remake ourselves here. You said you wished for us to be something other than master and manservant. I hoped that this was what you wished." He cupped my chin in his hand and looked into my eyes. I leaned in and answered him with a kiss.

"I haven't a thing to give you in return right now," I panted, when we came up for air.

"I have you," he whispered, smiling. "That is quite enough for me."

I shook my head, tumbling him onto his back on the bed where we sat. "It's not the same," I said. "I want you to have something to mark this as well." I held up my hand, adorned with his ring. "Something like this. Something that says you're mine like this says I'm yours." I could take care of it tomorrow, I realized. "You'll come with me tomorrow, let me get one for you? One like this?" It was certainly somber enough that he'd wear one like it; black and gold and a diamond, after all, weren't exactly leaping up and screaming about the glorious excesses of modern fashion to the passers by. Not a hint of paisley or plaid to be found.

"If you wish," he said. He was still smiling at me, his fingers trailing in my hair as I straddled his hips. I could feel a bit of a stirring below the buttons of his pyjama trousers. There was a matching stirring below my own, I must say.

I kissed him again. "I do."

He pulled me down atop his body and wrapped me in his arms. "I never thought I would be able to give you such a gift as this," he said softly. "There would have been far too many questions in England; it would have been entirely too dangerous, but here..." He kissed me, deep and slow and careful, saying everything that words would never be quite able to express. My entire body heard and responded, the way a mountainside echoes a shout. We were quiet and cautious, not wanting to be heard, but neither of us were strong enough to resist one another that night. I couldn't have stopped if there had been an army of aunts outside the door and I didn't want to in the least. There are moments when the only way one can properly tell someone just how much he means to you is to get him entirely naked in your arms and turn him into thoroughly satisfied jelly. I spent the next couple of hours doing just that.

I couldn't help thinking of the first moment I'd realized I was in love with him. I mean to say, I'd known for a long time that I was attracted to him, but one doesn't think of love when one thinks of one's valet. It's just not the done thing, or so they say. I'm not entirely sure who 'they' are, but they certainly say an awful lot of rot, don't they? It was that bally banjolele of course. I'd thought asserting the young master's independence and authority was important at that point; too many people had said that Jeeves had too much influence over me, and I thought they were right. I was stubborn to the end, even when I realized how badly I'd cocked things up after he bolted like an overly high strung racehorse at the racket I was making. I hadn't thought he'd meant to really leave me, and when he did, I was too angry and stung to react with a dash of sanity and beg him on my knees to come back.

By the time I realized what a chump I'd been, he was off sorting suits for Chuffy Chuffnell. He was only gone for a week, but it felt like one of those endless thingummies; ions or something, I think. Some Greek whatsit, anyway. Aeons, that's the chappy. That moment of realization of the whole soul's awakening bit happened during the Brinkley debacle, whilst I was being pursued hither and yon about the countryside by said Brinkley, who also happened to be toting a carving knife at the time. Jeeves would never have done any such thing, no matter how pipped he was at the young master! I missed him like billy-o and wanted him back quite desperately, and not just because my substitute valet was a homicidal maniac. I couldn't get on without him, but it wasn't just about the practicalities of having the morning tea bunged down in front of me, not at all. It was about the absolute devotion the man displayed; everything he did for me was above and beyond the call, and I'd not appreciated it nearly enough. The very idea of having him back was bliss -- nay, it was ecstasy -- and the thought sparked more than a little passion in the Wooster bosom. What I wanted more than anything was to be quite safe and snug in the man's arms. This was a revelation akin to the skies opening and bursting forth with the final trump, though with a touch less end of the world than advertised.

There I was, dashing about the countryside with boot polish on my face, being chased about by a throughly soused madman wielding a carving knife, realizing I'd gone utterly potty for my valet. My former valet, not the one chasing me about the countryside intending to turn me into fillet of Wooster. I suspect it was this sub-whatsit realization of my emotional state over the course of several previous months that had me trying to drive Jeeves away with the whole banjolele thing in the first place. It's that psychology of the individual wheeze; I think I'd been trying to avoid the trouble that I knew would come if I fell in love with the man, not to mention being rather afraid that if I did love him, what little free will I had would vanish like smoke in a hurricane. Poof. Gone. No more Bertram to speak of at all. Not that there had been much to begin with. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that I was frightened of the whole thing and kicking like a stroppy ostrich about it.

At the end of the debacle, when Jeeves asked if I intended to retain said t. s. m. wielding a c. k. in my employ, or whether I might consider taking him back, I rather threw myself into his arms in gratitude. Both of us were, I believe, a bit overcome at that point, though the embrace was only an embrace and nothing more. Once we got back to the metrop, we spent a few weeks tiptoeing about one another, uncertain of where things stood between us, both of us a little afraid to actually make a final declaration about it. Jeeves later confessed he'd been half out of his mind with worry about the fire and the c. k. and all the other chaos of the whole adventure. I rather wished he'd spoken up earlier and saved us both the trouble, but I think he was waiting for the demise of the banjolele. He's always been quite the stubborn cove, unwilling to budge even a hair when he thinks he's right. Of course, one must recall that we are both men of iron will. Allowances occasionally must be made.

In our little bed in Richard's guest room, we kissed and caressed one another, pushing each other to the edge of bliss and pulling back again, letting the pleasure build, over and over again. We touched and stroked and licked and sucked, finally rocking together, slow and gentle, with my hips cradled between his thighs as we gasped out our release. He was so dashed handsome in the dim moonlight coming through the window, his dark head thrown back, mouth open as he clung to me while he shook and trembled and came off against me. I don't think I had ever loved him quite so much before as I did in that moment. He'd given me a promise we could never formalize; we could never walk down the aisle in the old spongebags or have a vicar jot down our names in the parish records, there would be no fish slice or any of the other public things one might expect from such a declaration, but we could still take our own vows. We could still regard one another as though we'd done so. His ring was heavy on my finger as I held him in the aftermath of our lovemaking.

This whole birthday wheeze hadn't turned out at all badly after all.

***

"I know what you are."

I looked up at Soledad; her voice held a subtle hostility that set my nerves on edge. It was early in the morning and I had been in the kitchen alone, preparing breakfast for myself and Mr. Wooster. Richard had gone to the shipping office at the company's summons just after dawn. "What do you mean?" I asked, guarded and suspicious.

She sat at the table and watched me, her keen brown eyes veiling her hostility with a hint of disgust. "You think Richard never read me your letters, Reginald?" She made a small, disapproving sound. "That man," she gestured in the direction of the bedroom where Mr. Wooster was still asleep. "He is no _friend_ of yours. That is the man you work for; I know his name from your letters." Her eyes narrowed. "You, you're the boring one, the cousin who has never been in trouble, and yet here you are in my home after some kind of scandal; you don't come to visit on a passenger liner like a rich man, you come on a freight packet, so you have something to hide, something that shames you. You are fleeing your home country and do not intend to return, but you are not running from your master -- you bring him with you and try to hide that he is the man you serve." She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "I saw the ring Richard brought here for you yesterday. It is too small for you but it is not a woman's ring, and you know no women here, so it is for him; there can be no other. You do not offer even the most token protest about sharing a bed with this man for whom you have bought a ring." There was a sharp nod of her head. "Do not think I cannot see the way you look at one another. Do not think I cannot hear what happens in my own house, Reginald. You are quiet, _sí_ , but not quiet enough." By now my blood was running cold at her incisive and entirely too accurate analysis of my circumstances. "You are in my home because you are my husband's cousin, but you are a perversion; you are a filthy, disgusting _trolo_ , and do not think I don't know it."

I stiffened at the words. "We will leave as soon as Bertram rises, madam," I said. "It is obvious you do not want us here and I have no wish to burden you with our presence." We could secure a hotel room until our flat was ready. I would talk to Richard later.

She shook her head. "No. My husband has welcomed you here and I will not violate his hospitality to you. You are his family and I have my obligations as his wife. But you will keep your disgusting behavior to yourself while you are here. There is nothing the law can do about your filth, but I will not tolerate it around my daughters."

"I assure you, madam, that you and your daughters have absolutely nothing to fear from us and that we will refrain from any further expressions of affection toward one another while we are under your roof." We had very little to pack, as we had spent yesterday seeking a new home, not purchasing new clothing. We could remove ourselves from Richard's domicile within minutes, and I would not subject Mr. Wooster to this hostility or to the implication that we would somehow harm or corrupt my cousin's daughters. I had hoped to avoid a confrontation of this sort, but my attempt at discretion had failed badly. At least she was not threatening us. It was better than what we had received at the hands of Mr. Wooster's aunt in England.

"See that you do," she said, an air of cold finality resting upon her like a cloak upon her shoulders. She rose and departed quickly.

I finished preparing breakfast and carried it into our bedroom. With a quiet "Good morning," I set the tray upon the side table and sat on the bed, laying a gentle hand upon my lover's cheek. This man was the only important thing to me; he was my only concern and I would see to his safety and his comfort. He opened his eyes, slowly yawning and stretching, then smiled at me.

"What kind of a day is it, Reg?" His voice was still heavy with sleep.

"It is a fine spring day, sir," I said, "promising warmth and, perhaps, rain in the afternoon." I would not speak to him of my confrontation with Soledad until after he had partaken of breakfast and had his tea. It would be somewhat less upsetting to him at that point; I had always attempted to refrain from presenting him with disturbing news until he was fully awake and dressed. He had always been better able to adjust to such things after a meal.

He gave me an apprehensive look, suddenly more awake than he had been only a moment before. "You called me sir. What's wrong?"

I had not even realized I'd done so. I knew that attempting to deflect his attention away from the slip would only aggravate the situation. "I fear we shall have to leave this morning after breakfast," I said softly. "My cousin's wife has discerned the nature of our relationship and has expressed a great deal of discomfort with it, and with us."

He sighed sadly and sat up, slipping an arm about my waist as he rested his chin on my shoulder. "I thought..." He shook his head. "There won't be any end to it, will there? We're never going to have a home again."

"We can spend tonight in a hotel and tomorrow afternoon we will have our own flat, Bertie. At that point, so long as we are discreet, no one will be able to drive us from our home again. I will not allow such a disturbance." I took him in my arms and held him. "I shall speak to Richard this evening. We knew that this might not work, but we have resources and funds now and we will be safe, I promise you."

His eyes closed. "Why can't people just leave us alone?" he asked, his voice plaintive.

"That, Bertie, is a question I am incapable of answering." I had, too often, asked that same question of the universe, knowing I would never have a satisfactory answer. "People fear that which they do not understand and, because we must remain hidden, there is no opportunity for anyone to develop a genuine understanding of men like ourselves." Perhaps someday that would change. I did not expect to see such a thing within our lifetimes and I regretted it deeply, for his sake if not for my own. "We will carry on," I insisted. "We will be together and we will make a life for ourselves. We cannot and will not allow this temporary inconvenience to destroy us."

He took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, of course. You're right, old thing. And I'm still buying you that ring today." His arms tightened around me. "Yesterday was the best birthday I've ever had, Reggie. I'm not going to let this slight bump in our road dim the sunny Wooster disposish." I smiled and pressed a kiss to his temple. We would prevail; it could not be otherwise.

***

I was still in the bath when I heard raised voices. Richard and Soledad weren't exactly shouting but neither were they expressing opinions in the dulcet tones of genteel postprandial drawing room discussion. It was rather more like displeased cats with a toothache. I could hear Jeeves as well, but he was much quieter. I didn't catch a lot of it, as it was all in Spanish, but I could tell it was about this morning's unpleasant news bulletin. Considering how eager people tended to be to show Bertram the train schedule, I decided that stuffing myself into the outer crust of an English gentleman was quite likely going to be necessary in the immediate future and decamped from the basin.

By the time I poked my nose around the doorframe -- to ascertain whether there would be flying obj.s to duck -- the heat of the moment was over and I could see that I would only be subject to the still-glowing coals of the point. Jeeves looked distinctly disturbed, Richard was a bit redder faced than usual, and Soledad had vanished over the far horizon like an albatross that refused to stay with its mariner.

I greeted the ensemble with a cheery, "What ho, what ho!" They both turned a chary eye upon the Wooster corpus.

"Richard has asked us to accompany him to a café," Jeeves said. I nodded, only too eager to comply. Removing myself from the vicinity of angry beazels was this Wooster's _forté_ and I could see that I'd have to keep in top shape here as well. Considering fiery Spanish temperaments, Argentina probably held championship matches in beazel avoidance.

We washed ashore at a place called Café de los Angelitos, which was rather a bit overpopulated with plaster angels, but they did serve a topping cup of coffee, I must say. "I apologize for Soledad's harshness," he said, once we'd ordered our coffee. "I may not approve of what you do, but I won't have my family insulted under my own roof."

I looked over at Jeeves. "Does that mean we're not hieing off for greener pastures tonight?" I asked. I wasn't sure I wanted to stay. "I mean to say, I'm not all that sure I want to stay where the welcome has been worn and tattered like a sleeve that was ravaged by a stroppy terrier, or a tie of which Reggie disapproves."

"We appreciate all you have done for us, Richard, but Bertie is correct. I do not wish to be a point of contention between you and your wife; we will only be in a hotel for a single night, then we can take possession of our new residence. I believe everyone will be happier if we take this course."

Richard nodded. "Well, all right, then. I'm not entirely chuffed about it, but I do understand." The coffee arrived then, and Richard took up his cup. "I'd been hoping to talk to you lads about something else anyway." Jeeves raised an eyebrow and Richard continued. "Got called to the shipping office this morning early because the firm's Argentine partners are promoting me to captain, and I'll have my own ship in about a month. I'll have to assemble the crew, of course, but a ship requires investors. Since you lot have a bit of it lying about, I thought I'd offer you a chance to be one of them."

Jeeves wanted more information, though I was quite ready on the spot to hand the chap a cheque. Not that I had one just yet, but it could be got easily enough by dropping by the bank. I had more than enough of the stuff to spread around, and this shipping thing didn't seem like such a bad idea. It certainly wasn't the sort of fishy lunacy that Oofy Prosser got into when a whim struck him.

We talked about it for several hours and, even though I wasn't listening all that closely after the first ten minutes or so, I learned a great deal more than I ever wanted to know about the shipping business and all that rot. I was most certainly not nodding off into my coffee when Jeeves put a friendly hand on the Wooster shoulder and gave his stamp of approval to the project. The three of us ankled over to the bank and I handed Richard the ready, which he accepted with a smile. We'd sign contracts and whatnot before we settled into our new flat the next day. I thought if we couldn't trust Jeeves's cousin, who had been a thoroughly sterling bird all along, who could we trust?

After that, Jeeves and I secured ourselves a hotel room, and Richard said he'd have our bag sent by so that we wouldn't have to go and face the dragon in her lair again. This suited me to a whatsit. Once he rode off into the sunset, metaphorically speaking, I took Jeeves off to a jewelry store and found him a ring that matched my own. That whole gold and onyx and a diamond thingummy was actually quite popular and in that new and rather spare style of decorative art, of which I heartily approved. It strode quite firmly upon the balance between sedate enough for Jeeves and stylish enough for me -- a difficult thing at the best of moments, as I'm sure you can appreciate. Needless to say, he was quite chuffed when I slipped it on his finger with a kiss. Said kiss was applied to the Jeevesian lips, you understand, not his finger, though I'd be perfectly content to kiss said fingers any time he liked.

Our business for the day done, we legged it for the Pichiciago Club where, much to my surprise, I found a telegram awaiting me. It took a moment to recover from my shock. No one knew where I was, after all, except Mabel. Biffy would have forgotten moments after dumping us on the docks! Then again, they might have wired the Drones to inquire after my membership status. Opening the beast, I ran the old e.s over it.

> WHAT HO BERTIE OLD THING STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN ARGENTINA OF ALL PLACES STOP HEARD RUMOR YOU FLED IMPENDING MATRIMONY AGAIN STOP MUST HAVE BEEN HORRID AS YOU USUALLY AT LEAST WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE MET THEM STOP ARE YOU STILL GIVING ME A TOUR OF NEW YORK IN NOVEMBER STOP TUPPY

"Well," I said. "Well. Well, well." I handed the missive to Jeeves. "What do you make of this, old fruit?"

His eyes skimmed the page like a falcon on the wing. "I would say," he said, "that your friends are entirely unaware of the real reason for your abrupt departure." He looked up at me. "This suggests that, as I suspected, Lady Worplesdon has no intention of ruining the family name by revealing either your nature or our relationship. It does not suggest we can safely return to England, but I do believe you will be able to resume correspondence with your friends without fearing for your safety." One corner of his lips quirked upwards, signifying a pleased smile.

"Well!" I said, "That certainly brightens this Wooster's day!"

"Indeed." His smile broadened a bit, almost to the point where someone who had not known Jeeves for years might recognize it for one.

"I say, Reg," I said, "I hadn't thought about the whole New York this autumn thing. Will we still be able to do that, do you think?"

"I see no reason why we should be hampered in this," he said. "Although we should no doubt return to our roles as gentleman and valet among your acquaintances there. It would not be wise to let them know what has actually happened, nor about our understanding."

I rested a pensive chin on my fist as the barkeep brought us drinks. Being a member in good standing of the Drones, I was quite capable of bringing a guest into the facility, of course, which meant Jeeves was tippling with me as we awaited the sweet siren of tea time at the Pichiciago. "I'm not so sure of that, old thing," I said, tipping a glass sharply to imbibe. "What harm would it do to sweep away the illusion, do you think?"

He raised a glass with me. "Aside from the very real potential of up to twenty years in prison, Bertie, your friends would no doubt regard you quite differently. I have no desire to see you abandoned by them."

I blinked. Several times. "Oh." A tremulous sensation shot up and down the spinal column. It was reminiscent of a squad of centipedes having a rugger match or perhaps an entirely unpleasant massage by a squid. I looked down at his hand, where he wore my ring. "I just wanted... well..." I sighed. The day had been one of those Coney Island roller coasting thingummies for Bertram. Up, down, a bit of a loop, and a sharp drop that deposited the stomach somewhere several feet above and to the left of me. "I suppose you're right," I finally agreed. "You'll at least keep wearing the ring while we're there, won't you?"

He looked at first like he'd say it was too dangerous and that the constabulary would likely swoop down upon us like aunts or birds of prey, but then he nodded. "Yes," he said softly. "It is a risk, but I do not believe most people will be observant enough to understand its significance."

"Jolly good," I said, pasting on a genuine smile.

***

Although we bunged ourselves into the new abode the next day, it took us about three weeks to really start getting things sorted. We needed everything, after all, from teapots to trousers, or potatoes to pianos, depending upon which letter of the alphabet one preferred. Only a single piano, really, but it didn't feel like home at all until we'd got it in the door and properly tuned.

Mabel had wired several times since we'd got ourselves an address. She kept us apprised of happenings in old blighty among my chums and Jeeves's family. There were apparently a few speculations regarding my sudden scarpering, most of them surrounding the impending matrimony. None of the chaps were surprised I'd made the mad dash for freedom, though it seemed a few of them had figured out the real reason for it; thankfully it was only being noised about privately. No one wanted to beard Aunt Agatha in her den, of course.

We'd been in Buenos Aires for just over two months when Jeeves received a letter from Mabel. "It seems that Mrs. Pinker has had something of a run in with the authorities," he said, a look of slight smugness upon the Jeevesian dial.

"The authorities? Stiffy? What on earth happened, old thing?"

There was a tilt to his lips that hinted of hidden depths, such as one might find in the catacombs under a Parisian cathedral. "Mabel informs me that a certain document found its way to the press. This document chronicled the details of an _affaire de coeur_ between Mrs. Pinker and a particularly notorious member of the House of Commons."

I do believe my eyebrows bounced off the ceiling. "What? I mean to say, what?"

His eyes drifted down the page and he turned it over, reading further. "I am informed that a certain light blue leather book--"

"Reg! Her diary!"

His head tilted a precise four degrees and the lift of his lips broadened slightly. "Indeed," he said, sounding quite like a cat bathing in cream.

I blinked at him. "Wait a moment. That night..." He said nothing, but the air of smugness emanating from his person intensified to a level seen only in certain ancient Greek epics. "You... Reggie, you had the thing?"

"I had retrieved it prior to the dinner hour," he said. "One of the maids, a Miss Stephens, had acquired it with the intent to exact revenge upon Mrs. Pinker for her mistreatment of the staff on several occasions, and for engineering the dismissal of Miss Stephens's sister from another household."

"Good Lord," I said, sitting rather abruptly, as the Wooster knees had taken a sudden and striking resemblance to very thin string. "But, Reg, how did it get to the press?"

"The diary passed into safe hands prior to our departure for Argentina," he said. I assumed those 'safe hands' were attached to the ends of Mabel's arms.

"But... but what about poor Stinker? That would ruin the poor chap!"

Jeeves sat on the chesterfield next to me. "The Reverend Pinker was in no way implicated in the incident. In fact, he is in the process of seeking a divorce for reasons of adultery." He looked over at me. "This was the information she wished to keep hidden when she demanded your cooperation in retrieving her diary, Bertie. This was why she was blackmailing you."

I sighed and shook my head, leaning against him, feeling just a bit dizzy. "I say, Reg, I just don't know what the Code of the Woosters would have to say about such things. I mean, one must aid a chum in need, but one should never dishonor a lady either."

"I would suggest," he said gently, "that in this case, the lady dishonored herself. To allow such a charade to continue would have harmed your friend more than revealing the adultery, and the revelation also appears to have triggered the removal of a corrupt and immoral politician from office." He tucked an arm about the slender Wooster shoulders. "After all the times she blackmailed you into cooperating with her schemes, I do not see how this can qualify as an injustice, Bertie. Not only has she harmed you, she had set in motion the very events that drove you from your home."

"I know."

"This fall from grace was neither your doing, nor your fault. She had long ago sown the wind. I can never return your home to you, Bertie, but I could at least see to it that the person who had caused you such pain was amply rewarded for her deeds."

"It was your home, too." I tucked myself close to him like a duckling seeking shelter under it's mother's wing, and pulled his arm tight about me.

"I will admit that a certain desire for revenge had taken root within me during our escape," he said. He set Mabel's letter down on a table and turned to me, tilting my chin toward him. "My home, however, is and has always been with you. I cannot regret the loss of England when I have gained the freedom to live with you as your lover and not your servant."

I kissed him. "I suppose I can admit to a certain satisfaction with the whole thing," I murmured, feeling slightly guilty at the genuine glee I felt at Stiffy's comeuppance. "It's rather difficult to whack up any sympathy for a beazel who hated us for our alleged immorality when she was off doing horrid things to Stinker that, I must say, I think are far more immoral than two chaps falling in love. I feel terrible for Stinker, though."

"He will undoubtedly be angry and upset for some time, but I cannot help but think he will be considerably better off without her."

"I suppose you're right."

He buried his handsome if rather crooked nose in my hair. "I did not intend for the news to upset you," he murmured. His breath was warm against my cheek and he took the curve of my ear between his lips and sucked gently. It sent a pleasant shiver through the Wooster corpus. "Do you think my desire for revenge a petty thing?"

I shook my head. "Not really, no," I said. "In all honesty, I rather wished I could have managed it myself. I feel somewhat guilty for being so bally gleeful that she's having a splash of just desserts served after the blackmailing main course." That drew a smile from him. He held me under one arm as he took up Mabel's letter and read the remainder of it to me; it was almost equal parts pleasure and sorrowful remi-something to hear about the Drones and their doings. I missed the whole horrendously dim lot of them much more than I did when I'd traveled to New York. Of course, on those trips I'd always known I would be going back to old blighty at some point. There was also the whole being an invert thing to consider now. I suspected that some of them would handle it much better with an ocean between us than just a few miles of metrop.

The chaps at the Pichiciago Club were friendly and had taken me in to the club bosom without a whatsit, and that helped considerably. I'd been making friends and they didn't ask questions about the fact that I was living with Jeeves. Some of them had friends living with them to help with the expenses, so no one had a reason to inquire further about our arrangement. No one had even noticed the matching rings, which suited me as bananas and the occasional other assorted tropical fruit suit a peckish monkey. Our lives were, in many ways, much as they had been in London, if a bit warmer and opposite in season. Although it was November, it was entirely summery here -- I'd put Tuppy off until May for the New York thingummy, telling him I needed time enough to feel at home here before I dashed out for the shows on Broadway, the Pumpkin Club, and the speakeasies. I was quite looking forward to seeing him.

***

I got the shock of my bally life a couple of weeks later, in early December. There was a ring at the flat's bell. Jeeves shimmered into the foyer to open the door, self close on his heels given that neither of us had been expecting company. When he opened the door, we were both thoroughly flummoxed. An entire band of performing ocelots could have danced by with juggling sloths in tow and caused less stir.

Aunt Dahlia stood there in the hallway, accompanied by the lift operator, who was teetering under the weight of four suitcases the size of small elephants. "Well," she demanded, in a voice that would deafen opera singers a block away, "are you going to let me in or are you both going to stand there with your jaws bouncing off the carpet?" She swept in past Jeeves, the lift operator staggering behind her. He dropped the bags inside the door and the aged relation demanded that I tip the chap. I did, because I still hadn't been able to squeak out a single syllable due to a severe brain malfunction.

Jeeves picked up the bags, purely by reflex, I'm certain, and looked at me. "I... ah..." I burbled.

"I shall take these to the guest room, madam," Jeeves said, sounding like he'd swallowed a large and uncooperative boa constrictor.

She swept into the sitting room and looked around. I followed her, still trying to figure out if I was hallucinating or if, perhaps, I'd simply whalloped my head on something and had passed out. After a goodly pause, Jeeves glided back into the room and Aunt Dahlia said, "Well, I don't suppose this is too awful. I hear you've become a shipping magnate when I wasn't looking."

Jeeves and I looked at each other. I blinked. "What are you doing here, old flesh and blood?" I asked, with a determined air of nonchalance.

She turned a frightening eye upon us as I slid just a little closer to Jeeves. I hoped he might be able to come up with some sort of a shield should the aged a. start breathing fire at us. "I have rather missed you, young blot," she said.

"How did you find out where we were?" It was a question that required asking.

The auntly one glared at me. "Aren't you at least going to offer me a seat and some tea before you begin the interrogation?" she asked. "Your manners have utterly deserted you."

"Oh! Ah, right -- Reg, could you splash up a tea tray for us?" He nodded and vanished as mist upon the breeze. "Do sit down, aged relation," I said, gesturing grandly to one of the chairs. I had no idea what I was going to do next, so I remained on my feet, poised for a quick escape. She settled herself with all the gravity of several large planets.

Once planted, she looked up at me with a well-aimed arched eyebrow. "Young Glossop," she said. "He yatters. The man's mouth never stops moving, unless he's got a pie stuffed in it."

"Tuppy told you?" I couldn't believe he'd betray an old school chum like that. Then again, I suppose I could.

She smiled a predatory smile. "He was well into his cups at the time."

I was quite at a loss for words. They'd flown like so many panicked sparrows. I couldn't be anything but blunt as a cricket bat. "Why are you here?"

"Agatha has been utterly insufferable since you scarpered off; she's impossible without someone to torment, as you well know. You really must stop this nonsense and come home." Jeeves oiled into the room on silent casters as she declaimed.

"And what nonsense is that, my withered relation?" I turned a severe glare upon her. It would have scattered the Drones like dry leaves in a harsh wind. Unfortunately, Aunt D. is made of rather sterner stuff, having chivvied the hounds for many a year in her younger days.

She looked at Jeeves as he set the tray down. "This," she said, gesturing at him. "Carrying on with your valet. It's just not the done thing, Bertram. You really must come home and settle down."

"This isn't nonsense," I snapped, "and Reggie is no longer my valet."

Her lips pursed. "He does still seem to be serving tea," she noted.

"I continue to perform many of the tasks I did as Bertie's valet because our lives run more smoothly that way, madam," Jeeves said. Aunt Dahlia stared up at him, her eyes wide. She looked rather like an astonished owl. Her mouth flipped open and shut several times in the manner of a dyspeptic flounder. He'd never spoken to her that way before, of course; a valet would not, but one's lover is well justified in doing so. "I do so not because he pays me, for he no longer does, but because it is what one does for the person with whom one shares a home and a life."

"Really, Aunt D.," I said, "you know as well as I that I can't return to England. Aunt Agatha would bung Reggie into Colney Hatch before you could say 'what ho' and I simply can't allow that. If I can't marry Reggie, then I shan't marry anyone. There would be no sense in subjecting some poor beazel to a life sentence with a man who could never love her, would there?"

Disgruntlement descended upon her brow. "You can't possibly mean to tell me that you _love_ Jeeves."

Words were not going to solve this problem, but Bertram is a man of action, so I sprang into it with a will. I snagged Jeeves by the lapels and snogged him until he was entirely breathless and quite thoroughly rumpled. The glazed e.s and the smile of a besotted beloved were accompanied by his arms around me. I looked over at her. The aged relation's own e.s were so wide I feared they might roll out like a brace of marbles and bounce under the settee. "That's exactly what I mean to tell you," I said, and I meant it to sting.

She crumpled slightly and buried her face in one hand. "It's true, then."

"Do you really think I'd have run off to Buenos bally Aires never to return to England's green and pleasant whatsit if it wasn't?"

The auntly one took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She looked back up at us. Jeeves had regained his composure by then, but his arms remained around me. It was a stunning argument in our favor. "How long has this been going on?" she asked.

She didn't seem about to go off like so much tetchy dynamite, so I settled onto the settee with Jeeves. We couldn't really remain tangled together as we had been whilst standing, so we sat with an arm about each other and I leaned into him because I didn't want her to forget why I'd had to leave England and why I couldn't go back there without losing everything. "A bit over three years," I said.

She shook her head. "Well, young blot, I shall have to give you more credit for cleverness than I would ever have expected. I'd never have thought you could hide something like that." She looked at Jeeves. "I'm sure it was more your doing, keeping this quiet."

"No, Mrs. Travers," he said. "Concealing such a thing requires a great deal of discretion. For a relationship like ours to exist, both parties must take responsibility for their own safety and that of their lover. It cannot possibly be done by only one of the parties alone."

Aunt Dahlia looked at us for a long time, not saying anything. I could almost hear the gears grinding as she thought about the whole thing. "Jeeves," she finally said, "I don't dislike you at all. In fact, I have always had a great deal of respect for your intelligence and your ability to strategize better than Napoleon Bonaparte on his best days." He tilted his head in acknowledgement. "This... disturbs me, I suppose. Perhaps I was deliberately blind. I've always felt your loyalty to my nephew went far beyond what one might reasonably expect from any servant and, of course, there has always been the matter of Bertram's weaseling out of every engagement anyone's managed to fling at him; one often does not see what one does not wish to."

"Indeed, madam. This is frequently the case. It is a common human failing that worked to our advantage for quite some time." Pensive was pasted across the Jeevesian dial. "I would note, however, that my relationship with your nephew is legal here. You cannot harm him, nor can you force us to leave one another. If you attempt to do so, I shall remove you from the premises myself." There was a hardness in his voice that chilled.

I do believe if she could have reached him from where she was sitting, she'd have belted him with a cushion. Quite hard, in fact. "What I am attempting to say," she said, "though it has obviously not been terribly clear, is that although I am not entirely pleased with the situation, if Bertram had to end up taking up with a man instead of a woman, as would have been proper, I am hard pressed to think of a better one for him than you. In fact, I'm quite certain that such a creature does not exist."

"I say, what?" I I-sayed. I could not be absolutely certain my ears had not been possessed by deceiving spirits.

"Oh, do listen, Attila," she insisted. "I cannot make it any plainer than this: since you obviously cannot marry a woman, this... this whatever it is you have with Jeeves has what passes -- under quite trying circumstances, mind you -- for my blessing." With this, she turned an utterly poisonous gaze upon Jeeves. "Be warned, however, that if you ever hurt the little blighter, I will hunt you down like a lame fox and see to it that you are painfully and summarily disposed of. There won't be enough of you left to fit in a cigarette case."

I'm not sure who was more shocked at this, self or Jeeves. "Mrs. Travers, if you did not do so, I would question your fondness for him."

She actually laughed at that. "So you do love him, then."

"More than you could ever know," he said, his arm tightening around me in a gentle but entirely possessive manner. Jeeves's soft tone didn't leave enough room for even a single one of those sub-atomic thingummies of doubt.

"I had to be certain," Aunt Dahlia said, taking up her cup and bringing it to her lips. After a sip or two, she looked at Jeeves again. "I suppose at this point you should consider yourself a part of the family, though Agatha will of a certainty have some sort of seizure if I should happen to mention it to her." She sighed and shook her head as Jeeves attempted to absorb the statement. I was having a rather difficult time of it myself. Bertram may at times be like a sponge -- in terms of the whole absorbing wheeze, not in the way of lacking a spine -- but in that very moment, I'm afraid I was composed of a substance rather more like a duck's back, from which water rolls, rather than absorbing anything at all. "This being the case, you may call me Aunt Dahlia; I do assume you have a Christian name, don't you, Jeeves?"

Jeeves blinked. Several times. I was left with the impression he was quite overcome. "It's Reginald," he said, his voice wavering a bit.

She nodded. "Reginald. Rather dignified, but then one would expect that sort of thing from you."

"Thank you, madam," he said, sounding vaguely uncertain.

"Aunt Dahlia." There was a touch of sharp insistence in the statement. It had rather the effect of a blow to the head with a croquet mallet.

"Aunt Dahlia," Jeeves agreed, though with a caution befitting the act of facing a starving hyena when gnu steaks had been wrapped about one's body and secured by strips of bacon, being as he could not very well do anything else.

I finally found my own voice; it had crawled under the bed and curled up among the springs for a quick kip. I was actually shaking slightly. "Is this real, or have you recently escaped from the tender care of Sir Roderick Glossop?"

"I assure you, this is quite real, my beamish boy. Equally real is my complete and utter infuriation with Agatha for forcing you to up sticks and move to a God-forsaken place like Argentina. Now who will I call upon when that dashed Glossop snatches a bit of silver from under Tom's nose? I can't possibly trust Claude or Eustace, those useless pillocks; they'd bungle it worse than you could ever dream of doing. Reginald is the only one with brains enough to ward off disaster."

Naturally, it would have been too much to expect that she didn't have ulterior thingummies. No doubt this was the only way she could think of to get access to Jeeves's immense brain. Still, one did not sneeze at an invitation back into the bosom of the family, no matter how long-distance, particularly when the invitation-bearing envelope in q. included an invite for one's very male lover to join one in said b. "Do you mean to say you came here looking for a convenient Bertram to engage in petty theft for you again?" The mind boggled. It had been doing rather a lot of boggling recently. I would have to get the boggle tank topped off or I'd go entirely empty of the capacity.

"No," she said, casting an eye upon Jeeves, "but I do require some advice."

Some things never do change.

***

We took Mrs. Travers out to show her some aspects of Buenos Aires that Mr. Wooster thought she might enjoy on the day after her arrival. He had wanted to let her see something of what our lives were like now, and to offer her a glimpse of what he had hidden from his family for so many years. It had been a somewhat difficult day.

"Do you mean to tell me you actually speak this gibberish?" she asked, quite astonished, when Mr. Wooster engaged in conversation with a young Argentine gentleman from the tango _academia_ we had joined. We had entered a restaurant for dinner as Mr. Ibañez was departing and they had a brief conversation wherein the gentleman asked his aid in rescuing a foundering engagement.

"It's not gibberish," Mr. Wooster said, "it's Spanish. You'd expect someone who moved to London to learn English, wouldn't you?"

"Well yes, of course," she said, "but that's different."

His brow wrinkled. "Is it?" Mr. Wooster shook his head. "No, I don't think it is, really. I mean, I expect to stay here after all, so I should be able to understand what's going on around me, don't you think?"

"What was he saying?" Mrs. Travers asked, as we were taken to our table. She was handed a menu but, of course, she could not read it and Mr. Wooster had to translate for her.

"Oh, he was asking old Bertram to patch up a mess he'd made with his fiancée," Mr. Wooster said with a shrug. "At least here, nobody's ended up engaged to me accidentally."

"His friends here, for the most part, are aware of the nature of Bertie's relationship with me," I said. "They do not regard him as a threat or an interloper due to his lack of interest in the female of the species and therefore will trust him to intercede with the women in their lives on their behalf. I was rather surprised that they accepted us, but it seems that because we are not Argentine ourselves, we are not required to adhere as strictly to their expectations of _machismo_."

"I suspect they think all Englishmen are secretly pansies anyway," he said, with a shake of his head. "Reg and I are just honest about it."

Mrs. Travers regarded him quietly for a moment. "I do believe you've changed, young blot."

"Not really," he said. "At least I don't think so."

"You seem rather to have grown a slight intellect since you've come here." The wine was poured and she sipped at it, nodding her approval. "I recall you being a bit dimmer when last I saw you."

"When everyone thinks you're dim, they're less likely to try to force you into their plots, aged relation," he said. I could hear the undercurrent of bitterness in it. "If any of you lot had thought I was actually possessed of a brain, you'd have been at me constantly. I would never have had a breath of peace or a moment to myself. It was all I could do to keep body and soul together most of the time."

Mrs. Travers drew herself up in offense. "You can't possibly think you were that badly mistreated."

He looked at her over his wineglass, sipping and setting it down to speak. "How many times have you forced me to do something that would have me up before a magistrate?" he asked. "Cow creamers, black amber statuettes, all manner of thingummies and whatnots. Really, Aunt D., you must be joking. And Aunt Agatha's constant attempts to get me married against my will weren't exactly the milk of human kindness either. When she caught us, we were both _beaten_ , did she tell you that? Reggie could barely walk for most of a month because of what they did to his knee and I had a black eye that would have dropped your jaw halfway to China. It's just luck that Stilton didn't crack a rib or two when he was kicking me. I won't repeat what he threatened to do to us both if we'd been turned over to him for charges to be filed."

I reached out and took his hand as she stared at him; she had been shocked into silence by his words and by the anger behind them, her eyes wide with alarm. "They beat you?" she whispered.

"That was Stilton, really, though the household staff were responsible for mangling poor Reggie." He squeezed my hand. "And after they'd been working with him for years, every time we'd visited. Stilton's always had it in for me, of course. You'd think a chap like Reg might be able to rely on his friends not to try to cripple him, but that sort of thing apparently doesn't apply if you just happen to prefer other chaps." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he spoke again, it was soft and quiet. "Thank you for not going spare on us when you got here, Aunt Dahlia. I wouldn't have wanted to see him have to throw you out of our flat."

"I'm sure you wouldn't have let him throw me out of your--"

"It's _our_ home." His voice chilled and hardened. "Not mine. Ours. He's not my servant anymore, old flesh and blood. He's... he's the closest thing I'll ever have to a spouse and everything I have is his as well, from our bed to our bank account. You might be my aunt, but he's the one I live with and I'd marry him if I ever could. I left everything for his sake. You'd do well to remember that."

She had gone pale as he spoke, though his voice was soft in deference to the public nature of our location. "I apologize, Bertram," Mrs. Travers said. She appeared shaken. "I had no idea Agatha had gone so far and I will admit I'm still adjusting to seeing Jee-- Reginald as your... your... husband?"

"That will do," I said, "given that there is no word for what we are to one another." I will admit to some surprise that she had not cast me as his wife, given our respective social classes and the fact that I maintained the household. Yet one accepted indications of respect, however small, when they were given. She was obviously quite sincere in her acceptance of us as a couple, but there was no established protocol to follow in such things and one must expect occasional difficulties under these circumstances.

Mrs. Travers turned to me to speak, but the first course arrived at that point and the conversation shifted away to more trivial things. We did not return to the topic that night.

Mr. Wooster's aunt remained with us for three weeks, during which time I effected a solution to the troubles which had brought her to our door. Her presence in our home was more awkward than any of us would have preferred, but she was also more courteous and supportive than we could have hoped. Although she spoke to Mr. Wooster much as she always had, it was quite apparent that she had missed him a great deal and genuinely regretted his departure. It was with greatly mixed feelings that we saw her off to her ship.

***

Bunging the only aunt I wanted to remain related to onto a ship was... well, I'm not actually sure what it was, really. Mostly, it was a relief. Bertram enjoys a quiet life _sans_ visiting seekers of favors, whether they happen to be relations or not. "I'm glad that's finally over," I said to Jeeves as we waved to her, watching the ship waft gently away from the dock. "Auntly blessings or not, this Wooster requires privacy in order to properly lavish his Jeeves with the attention said Jeeves so richly deserves."

"I, too, have longed for the bliss of solitude," he said, offering a fragmentary smile that signified a chuffed and anticipatory Jeeves. While we'd had no reason not to continue to share a bed while the aged a. was in residence, we'd not engaged in any of our otherwise habitual nocturnal activities. One doesn't wish to disturb one's guest with unseemly amounts of moaning and the squeaking of recalcitrant bedsprings in the middle of the night, after all.

"I believe we both deserve a stiff drink, old fruit," I said. "A whiskey and s. would be just the thing to get the taste of a family visit out of the oral cavity."

"It can certainly be arranged," Jeeves replied.

"And perhaps an evening out for a little dancing," I suggested. Being responsible for entertaining the old flesh and blood had rather cut into our nights with the chaps at the tango _academia_. I'd sorely missed slicing up a rug or three with my man.

He got a dark and mischief-filled look in his e. "Perhaps an evening in for a little dancing," he countered, a wicked hint of a smile at the edges of his lips.

With a brightly sunny grin, I took his hand. "What a dashed brilliant idea," I said. "Your genius knows no bounds, old thing."

He chuckled, his eyes alight. "I have always endeavored to give satisfaction."

~~pau~~


End file.
